Daily Photo Parable

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!

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, November 22, 2025

Farm kids like me were taught to drive earlier than city kids. I learned not from a driver’s ed class but from a nervous farmer-father whose already heavy worry-load would become super-crushing during the months after he’d taught me (often in a loud, tense voice) all he knew about motor vehicle operation and defensive driving.

A couple of weeks ago, on my usual post-breakfast walk of nearly a mile, a wave of nostalgia swept over me as I noticed these two cars parked beside a sidewalk. The street descends slightly at this point, toward the camera, and I saw that these vehicles’ drivers had both cranked the wheels into the curb, so that in case the brakes failed, the car would roll not out into the street but up and over the sidewalk toward the lawn.

I remembered my own dad sternly explaining this to me, and such was his earnestness that I have always done this, without fail. Even if there’s scarcely any slope at all, I crank the wheels. And if the slope goes up, I crank the wheels the other way.

Fear, of course, was what led Dad to be so paranoid. His fear arose directly from love – mainly love to me, but also a caring for anyone who might be in the path of a heedless and insufficiently respectful young Maylan. And fear, of course, is what drives our Heavenly Father to make as sure as we can that we’re prepared for a dangerous world.

The Bible has some sobering yet ultimately comforting truths about fear. At this link you’ll discover some of them.

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/fear

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, November 21, 2025

On a post-breakfast stroll with Shelley this past Tuesday, I saw this little leaf poking through a crack in a board fence. Even though the ravages of autumn have started to cause a bit of discoloration, this leaf looks thoroughly healthy for its life-cycle.

I should have studied the crack more, or got a better photo angle, because it seems really tiny. Yet this leaf – separated from its companions as it is – is still alive. It’s been receiving nourishment the way any leaf does, through its stem. And the stem is connected to a branch on the other side, and the branch is attached to the tree trunk, which is connected to earth (maybe even a garden) on the other side, and has been drawing water from the ground and passing it along.

This little leaf gives me courage. Because you and I and every other human on this planet have been growing up outside the Garden of Eden. Yet we thrive physically, thanks to the generosity of our Creator, and spiritually if we allow Jesus’ Water of Life access to our hearts.

Have you been feeling lonely at all, maybe a bit like this leaf? The Bible has some encouraging things to say about this. Check out these five verses:

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/loneliness

Photo ©2025 by Amber Jurgensen
Commentary ©2025 Russell Jurgensen
Wednesday, November 19, 2025

In this photo a great-grandaughter sticks close to her great-grandpa. No matter where he went, she stayed beside him, followed close behind, or rode on his lap.

It made me think about how families pass traditions and values on to their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. One of those things is knowledge of God. Actions of the great-grandpa long ago would have set a tone for love and respect that carried on.

Here are a couple verses I like that speak about generations.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:5

For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.
Isaiah 51:8

We see that God’s salvation never changes. We also know that our actions now will influence those who come later, and sets a tone for how they understand God, and how they can learn to thrive with a healthy understanding.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Darren Milam
Wednesday, November 19, 2025

If you examine the first image, what do you see? To me, it appears to be strands of beads of some sort. Regardless of what you came up with, it’s based on this close-up, or a narrow focus.

Now, when we take a look at the wide focus (below), the more “zoomed out” view, we see that those “beads” are actually water droplets attached to spider’s web.

Life works the same way. There are moments when a narrow focus is essentially zeroing in on a specific task, reviewing an important document, or keeping a watchful eye on an active child. And there are times when widening your perspective matters more—navigating a busy highway, planning for your future, or making decisions that impact others.

Whatever the situation, whether you need sharp focus or a broader view, God is ready to help. In fact, He provides clarity even when we’re unsure which perspective is best. All we have to do is ask.

Just like these two images, we can either zoom in for laser precision or step back to see the bigger picture. Neither is inherently better—they’re both necessary at different times. What is critical is the ask we make to our heavenly Father – may He grant you the wisdom and guidance, to zoom in or zoom out.

Photo ©2009 and Commentary ©2025 by Robert Howson
Sunday, November 16, 2025

Conservation seemingly had no part in the vocabulary or thinking of most 19th century Americans. Almost limitless numbers of Passenger Pigeons were reduced to zero. Carolina Parakeets met with the same terminal fate. Extinction means exactly that, no second chances, no mulligans. But by the early 1900s some were beginning to recognize that man could make a difference by the way he perceived his responsibility to nature. Agencies were created, thus, in 1987 the smallest vireo in the United States was placed on the endangered species list. At that time there were only about 350 Black-capped Vireo known to exist and the path to extinction seemed to be a very real possibility.

Because this species is found only in the Hill Country of Texas, plus a very few sprinkled in parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, I had never seen one. This demanded a pilgrimage to the Edward Plateau. There, after considerable searching, we found our bird, one week after it was taken off the endangered species list. Of the 59 species that have been delisted since the act was created, seven have been removed because the species had recovered. This is one of those success stories where man’s efforts have made a measurable difference.

Although this passage wasn’t written with ecological concerns in mind, I don’t think we would be too far off to use it as a warning to use our resources responsibly. “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.” (Isaiah 24:5 NIV) It’s good to know that man cannot only destroy, but if he elects to do so, he can also choose to make a positive difference.

Photo ©2009 and Commentary ©2025 by Chuck Davis
Sunday, November 16, 2025

Many in the world today view the Bible as something other than the word of God. To them, the book of Genesis and its account of creation just cannot be true. The earth is billions of years old and natural selection and evolutionary processes gave us our world. Even accepting that God exists, it is too much of a stretch to believe that it all happened in just seven literal days. It cannot be true – my teacher says so.

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind (Job 12:7-10 KJV).

Job never went snorkeling on St. Maarten and likely never encountered a moray eel. This image demonstrates that even this “beast” of the sea declares the glory and handiwork of God.

All creation groans under the weight of sin, but immerse yourself in nature and you cannot fail to discover Him.