The Story of the African Poet Who Called America to Christ

Phillis Wheatley, Evil Times, and the Providence of God Where is God when terrible things happen? People are being trafficked against their will even now. The question Where is God? rises in the deserts of Libya, in the brothels and brick kilns of India, in the back streets of Atlanta and beyond, as innocent and trapped people suffer at the hands of others. This same question has perplexed God’s people from ancient Rome to America’s past during the transatlantic slave trade. And this is where we find the namesake of our story—Phillis Wheatley. Phillis’s story is one of beauty determined to emerge from ashes. Throughout her life we see God continually intervening despite man’s evil intentions to bend her life to their will and away from his. At just six or seven years old, Phillis was snatched from her parents and forced from Africa’s shores, along with thousands of Africa’s men, women, and children. She would never again see her parents, her Senegambian village, or any of Africa’s beautiful shores. She sailed on the rough, high seas of the brutal Middle Passage, and it’s difficult to imagine a child so young enduring the horrors of this trip: hundreds of adults in a single voyage, ...