Gladness (in spite of sadness)

Today's prompt for poem-a-day from Robert Lee Brewer offers endless options!!

For today's prompt, pick an emotion, 

make it the title of your poem, 

and write your poem.

I have received so many kind words, 

messages, hug and heart emojis,

and prayers and I thank you all!

In spite of sadness mentioned HERE

there is gladness!

Grief keens awareness

 and renewed gladness for life's simple blessings, doesn't it?

In the midst of so much taken, always still so much remains 

Kindness and compassion waken where trouble and sorrow pains 

Time is ever but a Lender; have-and-hold, a sacred lease  

Gratitude, Time's humble Spender; Gladness is its masterpiece 

Gladness finds a tender foothold in hugs, kind words, tears and prayers

Where, in grief would be hope's threshold without these and God who cares?  

How could we survive joy's sorrow? Hark, sweet words of old proclaim,

'Yesterday, today, tomorrow, Jesus Christ remains the same'

Goodness and mercy still follow; Gladness grips the Shepherd's staff 

Without Him hope would ring hollow; love would forget how to laugh

Death's shadow would not release us; but God changes everything 

Gladness shouts the name of Jesus; through Him, Death has lost its sting  

© Janet Martin

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not [a]want.

2 He makes me to lie down in [b]green pastures;

He leads me beside the [c]still waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup runs over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will [d]dwell in the house of the Lord

[e]Forever.

Sadness

Today's prompt for poem-a-day from Robert Lee Brewer offers endless options!!

For today's prompt, pick an emotion, 

make it the title of your poem, 

and write your poem.

My Faith Looks Up To Thee

 It bleeds from my eyes

How it aches in my soul

It authors heart-cries

Where death leaves a large hole 

It bids me to fly

To the hills of God's Word

And like David, cry

'My help comes from the Lord'

© Janet Martin

Ps.121:1-2

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

 My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

I Need Thee Every Hour

It Would Be Easy To Despair...or Hope's Great Counterclaim

Today's poem prompt from Robert Lee Brewer:

For today's prompt, write a pessimistic poem.

***

I shared the verse below on yesterday's post HERE

I am sharing it again today because it felt

like a divine reminder when I needed it most!

Psalm 116:13

I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the Lord.

(read the whole glorious chapter HERE)

Sometimes I forget...

The cup of salvation and the name of the Lord

supply every need!

Hallelujah and thank-you, dear Savior!

Sometimes I forget, happiness in this world

is not the end goal!

(But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;

 and all these things shall be added unto you-Matt.6:33)

(dear readers, not from this community.

I am mourning the loss of a neighbour and friend,

a mother to three children, very dear to my heart

who used to be in my childcare,

and who still visit on a let's-go-for-a-walk-to-Janet-whim💓

bearing gifts of farm fresh eggs, cheese, fresh cookies, etc.

and always so much love.)

In times of tragedy it could be easy to lose heart,

but through Christ, we have Hope's great counterclaim to despair!

Sharing a few recent YouTube uploads to cheer us on

I Set My Hope on Jesus

 

God of Every Grace

All Things-Sovereign Grace Music

It would be easy to despair

To be crushed beneath weight of care

Where the world at large has gone mad

Testing the quests that make us glad

It would be easy to lose sight

Of faith's position of delight

If we fixate on what we see

Of suffering's great misery

It would be easy to fall prey

To gloom and doom's cheerless dismay

It seems like Satan's bag of tricks

Has left a world no one can fix 

It would be easy to believe

The one whose hate aims to deceive

To plant a seed of doubt, to lure

Us from God's promises secure 

It would be easy to lose heart

As we watch the world fall apart

Because of the rejection of

God's Cornerstone of Truth and Love

It would be easy to give in

Crushed by consequences of sin

Without salvation's brimming cup

It would be easy to give up

...ah, here we find Hope's Deathless Rose

Salvation's cup still overflows

Redemption's flood still runs between

The part we see and the Unseen 

For this is not the Destiny

This is The Joy that Waits To Be

Lift up your eyes, behold the Yet

That we are so prone to forget

Remember, God is good and kind

He opens eyes, otherwise blind

Do not lose heart, do not despair

Time, but the path we pave/brave with prayer

© Janet Martin

2 Pet. 1:3-4

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness 

through the knowledge of Him who called us by His owna glory and excellence.

  4Through these He has given us His precious and magnificent promises, 

so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,

 now that you have escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Matthew 5:11-12

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you,

 and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 

12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, 

for great is your reward in heaven, 

for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Ps.122:1

I was glad when they said to me,

“Let us go into the house of the LORD.”

John 15:9-11

As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. 

Remain in My love.

10If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, 

just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.

  11I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you 

and your joy may be complete.

Sometimes the Past Feels Like a Dream...

Psalm 116:13

I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the Lord.

(read the whole glorious chapter HERE)

The pink-bud blaze

before first-leaf green haze...

Sometimes the past feels like a dream or scenes an artist drew

Its measure of moments like mist of seasons spilled and spent

Like Aprils, marbled into blurs of green, gold, gray and blue

Or like a book we read but could not keep, a volume lent

The joys of life teach us to sing, its griefs teach us to pray

To lift salvation’s cup and call upon the name of God

The older that I get the more I attend to Today

Before its dust settles in Past’s impenetrable sod

Sometimes the panoramas of What Once Was steals my breath

Like fragments of a melody, I have not heard in years

Rekindling awed awareness of time’s daily birth and death

Of eulogies composed of words and deeds, laughter and tears

Sometimes the past feels like a dream of flowers smelled and felled

Or snowflakes hardly held before they melt into thin air

Today is like a ballad borne on notes that play then meld

To mosaics of sound and sight that slipped from here to there

© Janet Martin

Sometimes the past feels like a dream of flowers smelled and felled...

(Because) We Never Know From Day to Day...

Job 14:1-2

Man, who is born of woman,

is short of days and full of trouble.

Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away;

like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

We are a community in mourning

after a tragic traffic accident

Death has a way of re-reminding us 

to look our beloved families, neighbors and friends in the eye

and love them like we were on borrowed time!

We never know from day to day what will unfold of joy or grief

Life grants no guarantees but one; death an ineludible Chief

'Man born of woman’s, days are few and full of trouble', we are told

We never know who will be next to slip beyond our feeble hold

The best that we can do is live and love as if today could be

The day of lasts before we step from time into eternity

We never know when joys we often take for granted will conclude

How kinder we would be, how gentler, humbler our attitude/gratitude

The best that we can do is trust the Giver as the Taker too

And not demand an explanation when a numbered day comes due

The best that we can do is make the most of Opportunity

Because we never know from day to day, what waits to be

© Janet Martin

Today Would Be Your Birthday...(or, Treasured Legacy)

Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Lee Brewer.

For today's prompt, write a living poem.

Today and every day  is our

lifelong legacy in the making!

Let's make it treasure-able💝

This poem is about a Treasured Legacy I inherited

simply by being her granddaughter!!

Both of my gramma's birthdays were in April,

one on the 3rd, and one on the 13th!

(I hope a kind cousin or sibling corrects me if I got the dates confused...)

Today would be your birthday...

Caught by surprise...

I think if we would line up the stitches she sewed in her lifetime

they would reach to heaven and back

So many quilts and comforters for family and charity.

After her family was grown, so much mending

for her daughters and daughter-in-laws!

Her hands, when she was feeling well, were never idle!

My last 'family picture' of my grandparents.

She cared for our 'special Aunt' until she was no longer able

Then Special Aunt was welcomed into the homes of her siblings.

Today, would be your birthday

Dear Gramma, your legacy

Is the most treasured hand-me-down

That you have left for me

Life wasn’t always easy

Yet, your faithful un-complaint

Often made me wonder if you

Were a gram-disguised saint

Humble, frugal and generous

You treasured each grandchild (all forty-something of us!!)

And always made each one of us

Feel special when you smiled

Your sparkling eyes and helping hands

And wisdom-seasoned speech

Instilled within your precious ‘grands’

Sound truths for us to teach

Where now by time’s fleet sleight of hand

I am a gramma too

Trying to emulate the love-

-liness I learned from you

Trying to hand down memories

That, by God’s grace will be

In the heart of every grandchild

A treasured legacy

© Janet Martin

A few more Gramma mementos...

Like Old Postcards

Waste Not, Want Not

Waste not, want not

She said

as she shook the crumbs

from the bottom of a bread bag

for the birds

or her next casserole

placing the bag in a drawer for re-use

as she brought someone a freshly baked treat

Waste not, want not

She said

as she saved the yarn ends

to hang in trees

so the birds can have some color

in their nests too

Waste not, want not…

and rags were cut into strips

sewn together

and braided for mats (see picture above)

fabric scraps became comforters and quilts

for the needy

…or here and there perhaps a stuffed toy

Pie dough left-overs were scraped

from the counter-top and

put in a dish in the fridge

for next time

and seeds were collected from her garden

for next year

and empty spools were saved

for crafts and creations (see pictures above)

and she would tell me of their wedding

during the depression years

and how they had to choose

between either turnips or potatoes

for their meal

and how her aunt took a cherished vase

out of her china cupboard

and gave it to her

as a wedding gift

because there was no money

and then she would often repeat

‘He who does not value a penny

does not deserve a dollar’

She never heard

Reduce, reuse, and recycle

But she reminded me constantly

That no generation is immune

To hard times or want

As the root cellar was filled with

Preserves from her garden

I am glad to have known

This part of her

As I attempt to pass some of Grandma on

To the next generation

In waste not, want not

© Janet Martin

I am privileged to be living  in the house 

that belonged to one of the most beautiful people I ever knew;

 my Grandma.

And then, a new song uploaded today by two artists I LOVE,

fitting perfectly with today's prompt

Cycle  of Life

Best of the Blessed or Ignorant Bliss

Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Lee Brewer.

For today's prompt, write a living poem.

The lap of luxury, I think

Is a bottomless well of ink

A wildness in the untamed grace

Of what to some, seems commonplace

A keen awareness of The One

Whose Sovereignty can't be outdone 

As, from each breath that He so wills

A sense of unplumbed wonder spills

Surely, best-of-the-blessed are we

who see through eyes of poetry

who find in the grind of life's grit

a kind of awe, in spite of it

to kindle, through its thick and thin

a mighty ocean 'neath our skin

where teeming tempests tug and roll

and rush the regions of the soul 

evoking in its sweep and surge

a sense of living on the verge

of  breath-stealing discovery

where almost-poems wait to be

set free, beneath the poet's pen

by we, Best of the Blessed, Amen 

p.s. (and if this is not how it is

rob us not of ignorant bliss

Indulge our erring theory

For the fine sake of poetry

Leave us to mine the deepest sigh 

for joy that money cannot buy

where quests to tame and wrest the roar 

of waves before they meet the shore

requires more than meets the eyes

of all who have not heard the cries

of a poem adrift, at sea

doomed to endless obscurity 

without whispered lifelines, ink-spun

to draw them from oblivion)

© Janet Martin

The best poems have no words!

God's love language is a universal dialect!

Psalm 103:22

Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion.

Bless the LORD, O my soul!

Psalm 150:6

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!

 Hallelujah!

A Funny Business, This

 Today's Poem-a-day challenge from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer' Digest

'For today's prompt, write a funny poem.

Keep in mind that funny isn't always "ha-ha" funny.

For instance, your poem could include a funny smell

or talk about a funny (or weird) person or situation.

And if you've ever hit your funny bone,

that pain is not making anyone laugh.

So write a funny poem, whether it's for a laugh or not.'

The other evening it was man (woman) against nature

as the lawn rollers showed up before I was quite finished raking

up pine cones etc.! Nature won and woman got drenched

but lawn is raked and rolled! Happy dance!

There is something exhilarating about racing against a storm!

Akin to the exhilaration of being surprised by a kind of joy

we can only discover as we grow older!

The kind of joy only humble gratitude grants!

Gratitude for life's simple things.

Like...

Sunsets...(an hour after the storm)

Supper...

and so much more!

A funny business this;

The older that we get

The more we find joy in what is;

This, not forgotten yet 😂

A funny business this;

The sense that humour grants

Like nicknaming Father Time's kiss

Reliable Romance

Let's laugh; be young at heart

Let's refuse to bemoan

The canvas that showcases art

That rankles/wrinkles skin and bone

Let's not waste happiness

In worry or regret

For every day leaves one day less

Of reasons to forget  😶

Yes, there are pains and aches

Social life turns into 

Gatherings at funerals and wakes

As death collects its due

Honing humble surprise

A funny business this;

The best of life cut down to size

Is Gratitude's sweet bliss

© Janet Martin

Ps.90:12

Teach us to number our days, 

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.