Grace In A Photograph… Hello to my weekend readers. After a fun conversation with my mom, before she hung up she wondered if I had kept the picture of the elderly man with his hands folded in prayer. I told her we have it on the wall in our little ‘cabita’ in Arizona and I asked her what was so important about it. She wanted one for a friend and thought I might know where to purchase it. I went on Amazon and there were lots of them and I sent one to her to give it to her elderly friend. It was then I got to musing on this picture because my parents, grandmothers, Aunt Mary and many friends had this picture on their wall. I got mine from my Aunt Mary—my incredible godmother! So, what’s the big deal about this picture?
My readers from Minnesota may already know, but if not, you’ll be happy for its incredible story! The name of the picture is just one word: Grace! Around 1920, the photographer, Eric Enstrom, took a picture of a white-bearded visitor, Charles Wilden, a WWI soldier, in his studio in Bovey. The resulting image, which Enstrom called Grace, gained international recognition and was designated Minnesota’s official state photograph in 2002!
Why did Enstrom call this Grace? He wanted it to represent survival in the face of hardship. He quickly connected it to World War I and the heavy toll the trenches of Europe had taken on American lives, as well as the rationing faced by Minnesotans on the home front. In a 1961 interview, he explained his intention to capture an image that would inspire the thankfulness in people who had endured deprivations and tough hardships during the war. By highlighting Wilden’s devout posture and humble surroundings, he aimed to evoke the spirit of religious faith, thankfulness, and the humility he associated with many of the newly arrived European immigrants to Minnesota.
In the 1950s, the Enstrom family sold the rights of Grace to Augsburg Publishing House in Minneapolis—a publisher associated with the American Lutheran Church. The photograph continued to grow in popularity in Minnesota, across the United States, and then it went global. By 1961, Augsburg Publishing had sold over twenty thousand prints! By 1961, Augsburg Publishing had sold over twenty thousand prints! In 1995 the image was listed as “public domain” and continues yearly with thousands of prints—wow!
All of us will indeed come face-to-face with hardships, it’s the tough part of living in this world. How we handle them is how we survive. Al’s and my parents came through the depression. They shared their stories with us and I’m still amazed at their tenacity and in awe of their deep faith. To this day my mom throws nothing away that can be reused. If you came through the depression, you learned to be smart and thrifty. We could learn a lot from them today! Below are just a few Scriptures that can “keep us afloat” when hardships come:
Genesis 3:14-15 — God has always had victory over evil.
Psalm 56:8 — Our sorrow matters to God.
Proverbs 18:10 — God is our shelter.
Romans 5:3-5 — Our pain has a purpose.
Romans 8:26-27 — The Holy Spirit prays on our behalf.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 — We have each other.
Revelation 21:3-4 — Our suffering will end in joy.
In the Great Depression many took their lives thinking there was no way out. Oh, if they only would have grasped the strength and power of God; and would have read these life-changing Bible verses! They chose to not take the offer of God’s profound comfort and spiritual strength, and it destroyed so many lives and families.
The transformative power of God’s Word has never gone away. Today, it is still there for all of us at any time. So, when hardships wiggle their way into our lives, we have the strength of God, we have the will of God, and we have the love of God to pull us through the hard times and give us a new perspective—day after day after day. Now I call that Grace, AMEN!
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