By Tim Binnall
Workers cleaning up debris from an enormous fire which destroyed a 150-year-old church in Massachusetts were amazed to find a painting of Jesus that had survived the blaze unscathed. The artwork had reportedly hung in the foyer of the First Baptist Church in the city of Wakefield. Following a lightning strike that hit the church's towering steeple on Tuesday evening, the building quickly went up in flames and was reduced to rubble by the time the seven-alarm fire had finally been extinguished.
Yet out of the tragedy came a sign of hope for parishioners by way of the Jesus painting which somehow managed to make it through the fire without any damage. One church member told a local TV station that the painting's miraculous survival is "a reminder that Jesus is with us" and that "even though our church building is gone, our church is here." The painting will reportedly be given to a former pastor at the church, although one hopes that it will someday hang in the rebuilt building someday.
Remarkably, this is not the first time that such a potential 'sign from above' was found following a fire. Earlier this year, a trio of religious icons survived an inferno which destroyed a church in Serbia. And, back in December of 2016, a charred but intact statue of Jesus was discovered among the wreckage of a home after a wildfire devastated a town in Tennessee.