Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, November 23, 2025
As we traveled down our familiar trail on our morning walk last week, I suddenly saw what you see in my photo – gold-leafed trees bathed by the sun in the distance, with bare black bushes and trees close to us.
But here comes the photographer’s urgent refrain: You had to be there to really appreciate it. The photo does not do it justice. Those trees were gleaming gold, making me catch my breath with their beauty.
And a song started playing in my mind, a gospel song I’d often heard when I was growing up. This is the refrain I heard that morning:
O, we see the gleams of the golden morning,
Piercing through this night of gloom!
O, we see the gleams of the golden morning,
That will burst the tomb.*
I thought of a friend who is grieving the recent death of her father. I thought of friends struggling with life-altering illnesses. We have attended two memorial services this month. Gloom surrounds us, sometimes invades us.
How thankful we are for the gleams of God’s promises that He will come again, and restore what has been lost, mend what has been broken, say “Never more!” to pain, tears, sorrow, and death.
Here are the first and fourth stanzas that accompany the above refrain, elaborating on what makes the coming morning so golden:
The golden morning is fast approaching;
Jesus soon will come
To take his faithful and happy children
to their promised home.
The loved of earth who have long been parted,
Meet in that glad day;
The tears of those who are broken hearted
shall be wiped away.
During our worship services we have a time before prayer when people can briefly share how God has blessed them, and how they need His help. We call it “Celebrations and Concerns.” Now that this long-ago song has been playing in my mind, I know we could just as well call this time “Gleams and Glooms.”
Another gleam – and this is a huge one – is that we have God’s promise that we will never go through times of gloom on our own. We often hear one of His names spoken and sung during this holiday season – Emmanuel. God with us. Three small words that are golden, promising His presence always.
We pray for God to clear away any clutter, stop any static, so we can clearly hear Him and see Him active and involved in our lives, always present, always working for good.
Every year I appreciate how Thanksgiving is the best doorway into the true Christmas celebration. As we feast on any combination of food, family, friends, and faith this coming week, we give thanks for all the gleams God provides.
And suddenly another song flies into my head! This one a small chorus:
Some golden daybreak, Jesus will come!
Some golden daybreak, battles all won.
He’ll shout the victory,
Break through the blue,
Some golden daybreak,
For me, for you! **
*Author and composer S. J. Graham
**In searching for this chorus’ author, I discovered that Carl Blackmore wrote it, but later asked his pastor father to write verses to accompany it. Until this discovery, I had only heard it sung as a chorus. Writing blog posts can be very educational!