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How IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE’s Donna Reed Found Hope in God’s Promises

How IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE’s Donna Reed Found Hope in God’s Promises

By Movieguide® Contributor

In an article from 1962, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE star Donna Reed explained how a conversation with her daughter helped her realize that God’s promises in the Bible are sufficient to overcome every worry.

“Mom, what did you have to worry about in your day?” Reed’s daughter asked, causing Reed to reflect on her childhood. She realized that God’s hand is present throughout all of history, and the Bible can give hope in any situation.

Reed grew up on a farm in Iowa during the Great Depression. The worries from her day centered around not having enough food or money. Even worse, however, were her worries about her neighbors and friends, whose suffering was harder to bear than her own.

“I doubt that any people in America suffered more than some of the Midwestern farmers in the early ’30s. These people, our friends and neighbors, were struck with a series of Job-like afflictions,” Reed wrote.

“Poverty, need, these things are awful things to have happen to you, but worse, I think, to watch in others,” she added. “I remember the sounds of our animals crying for food and water.”

Reed has memories of family after family packing up what little belongings they had left into their cars and leaving – not that there was anywhere for them to go. Yet her father decided to stay, something she attributes to his stubbornness.

“He would not give up. One by one we had to sell out livestock. One by one our neighbors deserted their farms and each time my father would say to us calmly but with undeniable vigor shored up by his faith: ‘It will not always be this way,’” she recalled.

His unimaginable confidence that things would get better came from his unshakable belief in God’s promises.

“Our minister used to read a lot from those Books of the Bible that rang with hope,” Reed explained. “Only recently I searched through the Bible to see if I couldn’t find some of the familiar passages and there, in Isaiah, I came across some verses which brought back the whole experience of parched farms and poverty as clearly as though I were there again, sitting in the pew next to Dad.”

“Just listen to these words from Isaiah 41:17-18: ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them… I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.’ These are the things which my father heard and believed.”

This belief was not in vain, as the Depression did pass, and Reed’s family was okay without having to leave the farm.

Thirty years later, this unshakable faith inspired Reed and gave her hope in a time with its own set of worries. God’s faithfulness is adequate. Whether it’s the Great Depression, the Cold War or the worldwide unrest we face today, He will not be shaken.

“All of our ancestors in distant ages have known plague and destruction in one form or another. Yet, centuries before my children, even centuries before Christs, Isaiah spoke about God’s power extending beyond Israel to all other nations and unto all generations,” Reed wrote.

“Today represents new times, yes, new problems, new fears, but one basic and beautiful thing links us with the past and with the future,” she added. “That thing is faith, our belief in God and His adequacy.”

Movieguide® previously reported on Reed:

Mary Owen, the daughter of Hollywood icon Donna Reed, shared the touching discovery she made after her mother’s death — hundreds of letters from WWII soldiers. 

Seventeen years after Reed passed away, Owen was going through some of her mother’s things. In the garage, she found a trunk full of letters from the troops. 

“When WWII was over, nobody really wanted to talk about it anymore because everyone participated in it,” Owen said. “I didn’t know anything about these letters.”

It’s unsurprising that Reed corresponded and kept letters from WWII soldiers. The actress did everything she could to lift the troops’ spirits. 

“I still have my mother’s ration cards,” Owen shared. “She went on bond drives. Whenever she visited her parents in Iowa, she sold bonds. She danced with the guys at the Hollywood Canteen and so on. Several of her movies … were shown at base camps. So she started getting these letters right around 1940, 1941, but really closer to the end of the war during the last two to three years. And she responded to them.”


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