MOORHEAD — When she was around age nine, Wendy Gerlach received her first camera as a gift. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an “old school” type that required mailing in the roll of film after 24 shots and waiting to see what came back. But for her, it was the key to capturing snippets of beauty during camping trips with her family or otherwise being in nature; images made by the original artist: God.
“My dad was a hunter and he would talk to us about not just killing for sport, but for food,” she says. “There was just an appreciation for what God has given us to sustain life, provide joy, and bring us enjoyment.” And enjoy, she did.
“My mom would say, ‘You really have an eye for this. You see things differently.’ I remember being told that from an early age.
” But eventually, Gerlach moved into marriage, motherhood, and helping provide for her family through various entrepreneurial ventures. It was during her several-decade stint of working her cleaning business that Gerlach hit a wall. “As I was cleaning a toilet one day, my heart was grumbling.
‘God, I feel so wasted here. There’s got to be more than this; than another toilet, another shower, another kitchen countertop,’” she recalls thinking. Later, pulling the vacuum cord from the outlet, she noticed something.
“The cord had made a perfect treble clef,” Gerlach says. “The message for me there was, ‘Wendy, everything you do is worship to me. Everything.
What’s your heart condition.
