When you hear the word “golden”, what do you think of?
For my four-year-old right now, it’s anything metallic. Silver, copper, gold, it’s all “golden” to her. And since it makes me smile to hear her calling our humble everyday silverware “golden”, I haven’t gotten around to educating her on the finer points of metallic hue identification.
But for me?
I think of my wedding band, a circle of precious metal around my finger, a valuable gift that symbolizes a solemn covenant made to me by a beloved man.
I think of lamplight on aged pine walls, and candle flames dancing above brass candlesticks, and the color of faces gathered companionably around a fire.
I think of the warmly lit hour right around sunset that a photographer lives for, that has been universally dubbed “the golden hour” for it’s unparalleled quality of light.
I think of honey drizzled on cornbread,
of foot pedals on pianos,
of the gilded edges of a new Bible,
of the rims of the plates I used to serve golden slices of pumpkin pie on Thursday,
of a palomino horse galloping in the sunset,
of the color of my daughter’s favorite hen and the yolks of her pretty brown eggs.
And I think of the splendid way that autumn ends up here in the northwoods, all the tamaracks ablaze with glory, making even the murky swamp waters glimmer with unaccustomed splendor. If the sun is shining on it all, then it truly is a tiny glimpse of heaven on earth.
This little taste of “heaven on earth” is my favorite of all, then, because it’s one fleeting golden moment reminding me of a golden eternity.
It’s that place I’ve never been where my homesick heart belongs,
where the streets, buildings, furnishings, dishes, and clothing are golden,
where the prayers of the God’s people are so precious that they are presented before His throne in golden bowls,
where all that splendid gold needs no sun to illuminate it because God is there.
I can hardly wait to get there.
“…the city itself was of pure gold, as pure as glass…and the city has no need for sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp.” (Revelation 22:5)
“The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelation 5:8)
When I was a young, aspiring baker, my mother taught me how to frost cookies and cakes. It’s an experience that I remember with striking clarity because, in her kitchen, not just any frosting job would do. Frosting (the verb, not the noun) was not merely a job to get done. It was an art form.
On mornings when I wake up to a frosted world, I can’t help thinking back to what it was like learning to frost. I enjoyed learning, but mastering the techniques certainly didn’t happen overnight. This refined coating of a thousand minute crystals deposited by a sudden drop in temperature, on the other hand, does.
This was a November unmatched for beauty, as autumn lingered gloriously long—and these are the quintessential pictures of it in my mind.
the rustle of drying grasses in the gentle breeze as the sunlight gilded it all to royalty…
the frosty mornings…
followed by warm and golden days…
But kind as it’s been to us, November is still a month of transitions as it must be, a split personality, if you will, bridging the gap between autumn and winter—and “they say”, whoever they may be, that the time of the inevitable change is at hand. There’s a winter storm warning for the weekend, and it’s time to finish that project of putting small girls’ mittens on strings that I’ve been putting off because we just haven’t needed them yet.
Rejoicing Hills 