Are Thunderclouds Over Your Head?
Migrant Mother -- Photograph taken during the U.S. depression in 1936 by Dorothea Lauren
The year is 1936 in America -- one of the years of the great depression. The black and white tones of this photo depict this time in the United States very well. It was a time without color. It was a gray time.
A migrant mother is the central theme of this photo. She has the face of poverty. Her deep eyes are sunken and worried. Wrinkles cross her forehead like tracks despite her youth. Her clothes are ragged and dirty. The dirt under her nails tell us of her work in the fields. But besides the back breaking labor of a migrant worker she is the mother of three children.
The young boy and girl turn away from us and are buried in their mother's shoulder. The baby sleeps peacefully on her lap. They have turned away from the world, to the safety of their mother. They are dirty with ragged clothes and unkempt hair. It is a picture of where we never want to be and yet where many of us are.
We may not be a poor migrant mother but we may be poor in other ways and without hope. We go to bed with worry and wake up with worry. Thunderclouds of foreboding hang over our heads like a shadow. What shall we do? How can we live? What's going to happen? And there are a hundred other questions. If this picture and description fit your life, then stop for a moment to reflect on this.
You have a Father in Heaven who created you and who loves you. He knows all that you need. He has planned a good future for you if you'll stop looking down and start looking up into His face. Consider what He tells us.... "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11