Can We Dare To Dream Big?
She had a dollar and fifty cents. That’s it. No investors. No building fund. No board of directors. Just a dream that wouldn’t quit and a God who wasn’t finished.
Her name was Mary McLeod Bethune. And her story might be the push you need today.
Mary Jane McLeod was born just twelve years after the Emancipation Proclamation — one of fifteen children in a family that was technically free but still living in a South that hadn’t gotten the memo. She couldn’t start school until she was eleven, when the first Black school finally opened in Mayesville, South Carolina. Eleven years old before she could sit at a desk. Most of us would’ve called that too late. God called it right on time.
A teacher noticed something in Mary. Recommended her for a scholarship. And at thirteen, this girl from a family of fifteen found herself standing in front of Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, staring up at brick buildings, massive columns, and a world she’d never known. She was overwhelmed. She was intimidated.
But God was busy planting a dream in her heart.
Mary finished school. Headed to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. She had her sights set on Africa. She wanted to be a missionary. But the Presbyterian Missionary Board turned her down.
Now here’s where most stories would end. A closed door. A crushed dream. A reason to quit.
But detours don’t have to be dead ends. Sometimes the detour is the destiny.
Mary followed her heart back to the South. She married a fellow teacher, moved to Daytona Beach, and noticed something that broke her: Black families were following labor jobs up and down the coast, and nobody was teaching their children. Nobody.
So she rented a house. Turned it into a schoolhouse. Sent her girls out to scavenge. A wooden box became a desk. Splinters of coal became pencils. Spanish moss hanging from the oaks became stuffing for mattresses. And with a dollar fifty and a God-sized dream, she opened the doors.
Five girls walked in on the first day. Five. But Mary wasn’t counting heads. She was following a heart set on something bigger than herself. She taught them history, literature, Latin, and Bible. She told them, “We seek to educate the head, the hands, and the heart.”
The school grew. Almost two hundred students. Mary needed land, money, and a miracle. One day, an elderly man heard her girls sing and asked to see the school. Mary looked him in the eye and said, “It’s in my mind and heart, Mr. Gamble.”
Mr. Gamble became the first trustee. They built the first building and named it Faith Hall. And that little dream eventually became Bethune-Cookman College.
Mary went on to advise President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She worked with the NAACP, the Urban League, and the National Council of Negro Women. In her will, she left these words: “I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you a thirst for education. I leave, finally, a responsibility to our young people.”
Friend, you have a dream burning inside you. Maybe the door you wanted slammed shut. Maybe the timing feels off. Maybe all you’ve got is a dollar fifty and a prayer. That’s enough. It was enough for Mary. And the God who planted that dream in her heart is the same God whispering to yours.
Follow it. You were born for this.
Keep looking up!
Heaven is closer than you think.
May God bless your day.
Related devotionals: Pascal’s Night of Fire · Peter Marshall’s calling · Eisenhower’s D-Day faith
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If today’s devotional spoke to your heart, my books carry these same themes deeper. Stories of God moving in ordinary lives, scripture for tired pastors and weary parents, and steady reminders that heaven is closer than you think.