How will Remembering the Reason for the Season enhance our Golden hour?

Dear family and dear friends,                                                             December 2025

A great aunt in New Zealand, my mom and dad

and siblings have prepared and sent Christmas letters.  Do your family traditions run deep? 

Basking in the wake of an autumntime election, meals of thankfulness, we are remembering the beauty of a beloved sister who passed away in January 

and the blessing of moving Mom to memory care--hearing her say, “It is good for me to be here!” 

We learned from a neighbor with 41-years in ski patrol 

of something called a “Golden Hour:”

 

the period where a person in trouble may be best helped. 

Here is a golden question: 

What if our lives could be filled with “golden” hours? 

Who might need a smile? 

A word of courage?

 

Recognition? 

(see 95 year old Kaysville Twins share life advice)

(including memorable melodies--view a video of Concerto Bravo [watch for the "wow" at the end]

or a Renton winter concert including "Who will be a Witness?"

                    

For Starkeys, 2025 included golden hours of “Alaskan adventure”, 

uninterrupted, 

with “no empty chairs”

—connection with every child 

and grandchild. 

Unprecedented.  Unexpected.  

Have miracles ceased?  

Is there 

anything more like heaven?  

I say unto you, “Nay!”  

Last month, a next-door neighbor fell from his roof just before Laurene arrived home and (within a space of a few moments) was able to call emergency help to save his life.  

Can we (like a youngest daughter) assess our part in the “assembly line” process? 

Could there be a better blessing than living when essential attention can be sudden, direct, immediate? (Mal. 3:1) “…And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,

even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in:

 behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” 

As we pray to find and create golden hours 

in a season of remembrance and of the creation of plans, we thank heaven for YOU

--golden connections who seek exactly the right time to reach out. 

We love you--A barely belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Laurene and Val Starkey