© BASILICOSTUDIO STOCK / stock.adobe.com
Most newlyweds receive their wedding photos within a few weeks of their ceremony. But a British couple received their forty-six years later. They only saw the photos once after getting married and ordering prints, but they didn’t see the photos again until last week.
The photographer died in February and his nephew came across the photo album while searching his uncle’s boxes. “They looked like they had never been touched since the day they were included on the album. They were flawless and looked like brand new photos with so much color. The box was a bit dirty and full of dust and dead spiders, so I wasn’t expecting much. “
He tracked down the couple in the photos via social media and reached out to them.
Although now divorced, the couple did not remarry and have remained friends. They were surprised to receive the photos after so many years. Your daughter, who now has two daughters of her own, was thrilled. “The excitement of being able to see the photos of my mom, dad and family members looking so young, looking through the vintage clothing and sharing an important piece of my family history with my two daughters is truly a miracle,” said.
A foundation for future generations
Most of us enjoy looking through old photos, especially of family and friends. As the couple’s daughter discovered, their vintage clothing is exciting to see and pieces of family history to share.
My husband and I have a “family wall” with old photos of ancestors that go back several generations. Our grandchildren love to hear about the “strange looking” people in the photos. The photos capture a bygone era that is preserved by the photos.
We have wedding albums that we still enjoy going through 42 years later. And our grandchildren find the clothes we wear pretty old-fashioned.
My husband has wedding photos of three couples of his great grandparents. Her expression is not as happy as in our wedding albums. But they were from another time, when most of them looked solemn in photos even on happy occasions.
Various photo albums that we have include pictures of both of us when we were children, photos of our children growing up, and photos of our oldest grandchildren. But now most of our photos are on our smartphones. Some of these were taken away on past holiday weekend when the whole family went to the beach.
While it’s convenient to have “instant” photos and not have to edit a movie, I keep all of the photos on the phone rather than in drawers or boxes. It is definitely necessary to have copies made to make these “pieces of history” more memorable.
In house fires, people have always tried to save valuable photos and albums. Why? They represent a legacy and a foundation of values.
But preserving family history is more than just saving photos. It’s more than just a laugh at the vintage clothes, cars, hairstyles, and homes of the past. It’s more than just happy memories popping up on social media. Or posts with smiling faces.
It forms a foundation for future generations that will last over the years. A foundation that can withstand fire, storms and trials. It creates memories that are imprinted on hearts and minds and shared over the years.
The solemn people in the photos that we have on our wall and in photo albums have endured the deaths of children, the hard life on the border, through wars, famines, depression and pandemics. They held onto foundations that were laid in front of them. And we’re sticking to the foundations they laid.
Now we have lived through a pandemic and other hardships, and one day our grandchildren will share with their grandchildren the importance of having a strong foundation of belief in surviving difficult times.
A foundation forever
God’s Word is our album, our “picture” of the one who loves us most, that is worth more than anyone else that we can share.
The words of God to the Israelites who left Egypt are still God’s message today: “So you should put these words of mine into your heart and soul and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they should be like” Frontlets between your eyes. You should teach them to your children by talking about them when you are sitting in your house and walking on the path, when you lie down and when you get up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates ”(Deuteronomy 11: 18-20).
And the teaching was repeated by Jesus: “Anyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who has built his house on the rock. And it rained, and the floods came, and the winds blew and struck this house, but it did not fall because it was founded on the rock ”(Matthew 7: 24-25).
When the wedding album found the couple 46 years after the wedding, their lives had changed. The photos conveyed memories of a happy occasion.
We can know that we have a secure foundation when we base our lives on God’s Word: “I, the Lord, do not change” (Malachi 3: 6); Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever ”(Hebrews 13: 8).
Are the values that are most important to you engraved in an album or in eternity?
