Showing posts with label Thursday Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thursday Thoughts. Show all posts

Thursday, June 8, 2023

To Get or to Receive...and a few other Thursday Thoughts

Happy, hope-full Thursday!
Hope-full no matter what!!
because of 
Whose Name we can call upon;
Jesus!

Acts 3:19-20
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,
 that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
 20 and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—
even Jesus.

***

What a peace each morning, to rest in the Giver's Hands 
whatever the day unfolds!
And when we ask of Him whatever He wills, 
then all we have we have received!!
When we neglect to ask, then all we have 
is simply what we get, 
minus the joy of the awareness of having received.
When we receive something
the receiving of it inspires thankfulness/praise
to the Giver!

***

If we ask, we receive
Otherwise we just ‘get’
The end result that ‘reach’ achieves
May seem the same, and yet

Though seizing of ‘the prize’
May share a common end
The ‘given’ and the ‘gotten’ guise
Are worlds apart, my friend

One works with wantful thought
One begins on its knees
Then, how we gained The Same Thing sought
Only the Giver sees

© Janet Martin



***

it is hard to store treasure
in heaven, 
while laying up treasure 
on earth
the measure to whom much 
is given
without heaven's store
bears no worth...

What will life be 
but a squandered
wonderful gift
groaned-grinned?
If, all we have gained
when plundered
is nothing but chaff
 on the wind

***



***

rationalism,
spiritualism,
sensationalism,
oh my!
Lord, pray these never 
overpower the sway
of three little words

***

If all I had was what I give
Oh, would it be enough
To satisfy my mouth with bread
And my longing with love?

***

And this last one inspired by my husband 
who is a truckdriver and just left the scene of a fatal accident
moments ago
(a car crushed by a gravel truck)🙏😥💔

Our life is like a flower
That someday God will fell
...and of that day and hour
not one of us can tell

***

Thursday, January 12, 2023

We Will Go Forth (and a few more Thursday Thoughts)


We cannot outlive the Unknown
or challenges we face 
But look, each moment's steppingstone
is anchored in God's grace

Faith's substance of things we hope for
will someday rend the veil
Revealing the complete splendor
Of love that did not fail

***
The sunless stretch continues...
not sure what happened to last week's forecast for this week's yellow...


It could certainly have the potential to dampen our spirits if we let it!
But...

If we would fixate on the weather we might be quite glum
It's been a dose of dreary, drippy, damp, sunless ho-hum
But love and life are so much more than covers of a book
So much of what is written is hidden until we look!
Then as we turn the pages where God's goodness overflows
We find ourselves quite speechless, awed by blessings He bestows 

***


Seeds are so very, very small
Sometimes we doubt their clout
And dare to wonder where they fall
...until they start to sprout 

Seeds look like nothing much at first
Mere crumbs, mundane and mute
But from the crumb, when it has burst
Comes all manner of fruit 

Seeds seem to be too slight and slow    
To hold much harm or good
But as the sprout begins to grow
Seed's clout is understood 


***

Our worlds are often mirrored in the shimmer of a tear
Or lightened by the laughter of someone we love so dear
Or sweetened by the banter of a breeze, a child, a bird
Or brightened by the candle of a kind and gentle word
Hard knocks are often softened by a handshake and a smile
Making the world that shimmers in a tear, so worth its isle/while

***

Tick-tock tempo laps the shoreline of  a winter afternoon 
Like the summer-blue momentum of lake-lyrics lazy tune 
Like a breeze undresses tresses of its leaf-shaped souvenirs 
Tick-tock tempo falls and rises until winter disappears

***  
This morning's foggy shroud inspired the beginning of this poem...


We will go forth then, you and I
The view of what yet waits withheld
Like a masterpiece made of sky
Vaulted above the mist-veiled veldt
While the clocks unrelenting toll
Unfurls and collects, synchronized
In breath-sized billows as they roll
Through hopes salvaged from dreams capsized
Undoing what we thought we knew
With sudden, foreign points of view

We will go forth because, my dear
No choice awaits but to proceed
Faith spurs us on and spars with fear
As scars forge wisdom’s crown and creed
Where delight, like a diamond stud
Dazzles dark backdrops of dismay
Where hope, like an unbroken bud
Reminds us of blooms held at bay
Cheering us on as vast unknowns
Unfold flowers and steppingstones

We will go forth but not alone
Goodness and mercy follow still
Where thoroughfares of grin-and-groan
Are never all down or uphill
The valley where shadows are cast
Like creases in a color-world
While the Master pieces the Past
With present grace on grace unfurled
His able Hands cradle the sky
We will go forth thence, you and I

© Janet Martin

(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
2 Cor.5:7

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

I Wouldn't Trust a Pen (If I Were You)



Expectation is the creation
Of imagination; often felled
Before the very eyes that prized
The picture that they held

***

Sometimes, due to lack of practice 
Our small sacrifices seem large 
-er than they really are
We don't admit how slack our track-record is 
Until circumstance raises the bar

***

Sometimes hearts are arks of safety
We store in them fragments of yore
(sometimes hearts break; they do mend 
But never quite 
back 
To the way they were 
Before

***

Pens keep secrets 
But oh, they spill them too 
I wouldn’t trust a pen 
If I were you 

***

Life is give-and-take 
It makes plain the hidden man 
By how we give 
And what we take 

***

If love is
Patient and kind 
Maybe that is why 
True love is 
So hard to find 

***

Night ink is bolder 
Than the ink of day 
It spells things that morning
Never quite knows 
How to say

*** 

Loss is more than havoc 
Wreaked on comfort zones 
Some takes its time 
Like the surging sea 
Washing away stone 

***

Swift words are often hurtful 
If we want to be wise 
We should take a moment 
And cut them down to size 

© Janet Martin 







Thursday, November 5, 2020

Change Is Not A Comfy Sweater


This post started while hanging out laundry
and contemplating Comfy...



One thing I love in fall is pulling out old sweaters
that have certainly seen better days
but have such a comfy, cozy coming-home feeling!

***
Change is definitely not a comfy sweater!
2020 has forced all of us into certain 'outfits' we would never choose
but must learn to adapt to, and wear!

***
Change keeps us on our toes...
Ballerinas poised on joy's highs and lows

***
Change yanks us from easy chairs 
to balance-beams
Thank God for books; yellow with age 
amidst change-fueled streams

***
Change is much more than a mirror
Playing back the view
Change is like a subtle shearer
Of sheep, and wolves too

***
Change is a symphony of Touch
Give and take synchronized
Look, while we try new shoes and such
It steals The Old we prized

***
Change; inevitable matter of Fact
Stretch if you must but keep Focus intact
Sooner or later, as change takes its toll
It will take all but Creator and Soul
 
***
Change is a strange, familiar thing
As common as a clock
Eternity hinged to a string
Thinned with each tick and tock

***


Tick-tock, tick-tock
If we could see 
Time's filigree unwind
With each tick-tock 
I think we'd all be
More humble and kind

*** 
Change sometimes makes me feel a bit like I am stuffed into 
An outfit snug and stiff, uncomfortable, brand new 
I’d rather wear something kind of threadbare but broken in 
Because I feel much more at home in Routine’s Rags, worn thin 

Change sometimes makes me feel like a child at a wishing well
Or middle-aging student learning how to read and spell 
Where familiar failures and successes are not enough 
To shield me from new guessing-lessons about life and love 

Change sometimes makes me happy but more often breaks the mold 
That feels like so much like my own skin, well-adapted and old 
Till estrangements and fresh arrangements stretch and test and try 
Change is a ladder to stars that keep falling from the sky 

© Janet Martin 



Friday, October 16, 2020

Poem-Contemplations/Compilations From My Little Corner of Countryside







I love the way the seasons play upon the harps of countryside 
Their melody of majesty spills from plucked earth-strings far and wide 
I love how no one gets enough of what One greater than us grants 
Ah, don’t it make us wanna sing and don’t it make our heart-feet dance 
And don’t it wake a mystic ache as we partake of Beauty’s let
To trust the Hand that fills the land with such a gorgeous pirouette 

© Janet Martin 


I Want to Want… 

I want, not green-eyed envy when someone seems to collect 
With ease my dreams and fantasies I have not tasted yet 
I want to want unjealous joy 
And not let green-eyed mon destroy 
The happiness that waits for me in love’s kind-mind humility 

© Janet Martin 

In Plain Sight 

Be not deceived; God sees the heart 
Where our true passion lies 
He is not taken by the art 
Of winking, batted eyes 
But ever He seeketh to find 
In both aged and youth 
Worship that is humble and kind 
In spirit and in truth 

© Janet Martin 


Whether-challenge 

Whether our corner is noisy or quiet 
A color-riot or somber and plain 
Whether we borrow or whether we buy it 
Whether the weather is sunshine or rain 
Whether we ramble or rush with intention 
Push through the bramble or sail the high sea 
Whether we worry or wait without hurry 
Whatever else our whether may be 
God is the Giver of all that we savour 
Whether we consider Him, or not 
So thus, it behooves us if pray, He so moves us 
To give to the Giver the best we have got 

© Janet Martin 



Subtle Shuttle 

My, my, the metronome of moments 
Moves with smoothest ease 
It gathers both highlights and low blows 
Into memories 

My, my, time’s loom in us is subtle 
Where a shuttle whirs 
Weaving breath by breath a luminous 
Heath of lost summers 

© Janet Martin 


From the premonition of perhaps 
A sharp-edged awareness is born 
As we honestly admit our utter dependence 
On He who orchestrates the morn 

From the premonition of perhaps 
A world of fear or faith unfolds 
It all depends upon the vantage-point 
And the hand to which one holds 

© Janet Martin 

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Thursday Thoughts on Nothing New


It is impossible to find fulfillment in the things we see
Until we look through thankful eyes of kindness and humility

***

No matter what we may achieve
No boast let thought suggest
For only through what we receive
Makes possible the rest

***

Pity not he who cannot see
But those whose sight is blind
So full of animosity
The good they cannot find

***

If we thought less of self and more of God the world would see
Without a word the proof of love the way it ought to be

***

Darling the day is dying
Darling, ah, we are too
Then pray Hope is relying
On God, faithful and true

***

I love the way the birth of day
Soft-ushers earth back into view
And whether it is gold or gray
I love the way it looks on you

***

Aubade and lullaby, oh my
Time’s music-man is sweet
He spills the fathoms of the sky
In shadows at our feet

***

Maybe you think a rhyme is a sad waste of Time and ink
Well, that’s okay but I must say I dislike how you think
Maybe you think a poem is word’s weakest enterprise
But I dare you to try a few before you roll your eyes

***

Oh, isn’t it exciting when your toes first touch the floor
To wonder what is waiting where dawn swings ajar its door
Ah, what and who will paint the pictures that only thought sees
After the laughter that is waiting turns to memories

***

Rock-a-bye-river
Wherever you be
You are a Singer
That sings to the sea

Sometimes your chorus
Is muted and mild
Sometimes the roar of
Your paean runs wild  

Rock-a-bye-schooner,
And hush-a-bye lea
Cradle the crooner
That sings to the sea

*** 

The colors of mid-afternoon
on a mid-winter's day
are blended to perfection
In a tea-pot of Earl Gray

***

When daylight disappears
and adds its weight to yester-years
Pray, should this be our final one
The Lord will greet us with "well done"



© Janet Martin




Thursday, November 29, 2018

With Nothing But Now! Some Thursday Thought!


 What fires your get-up-and-go-motor in the morning?


I love you, precious person
Still near enough to kiss
Lord, keep my eyes-arms-heart wide open
To what I'd hate to miss!

***

 Who-wherever you are
In Whatever WHAT-IS grants 
remember today is a rare
once-in-a-lifetime dance!

***

a full time job, this How
to handle joy and strife
where what we make of here and now
Is what becomes a life 

***

how holy is each hour, love
that draws us near the part
where legacy of life will prove
the lordship of the heart

***

Be careful if you think
that time is on your side
its very elemental wink
Holds eternity's door wide

Thus, while Now grants God's grace
we, with Faith's utmost care 
Should, while Time lends its breath of days
For death's big place prepare

***

Keep your chin up, 
darling lover of flowers
Laugh where time's cup 
runneth over with hours
For soon with svelte 
silver stars sparkle-spun
Winter will melt 
in warm puddles of sun

***

Make Certain the course toward life's final goal
where day-to-day diamonds are strung
where hallowed workouts will not save your soul
Or keep you forever young
So take a good look in the mirror, my dear
so as not to be tricked by surprise
If the god that you serve grows more wrinkled each year
You have the wrong god in your eyes
 ***
Workouts and days have this in common; they require only one move at a time
...not the whole she-bang at once!
Doesn't that give you a right-foot-left-foot bounce?!

***
Leave What Was where it rests
Learn to let go somehow
Enough, enough, the Stuff that tests
The ever-present Now

Look; love pours gold-blush-blue
Through heaven’s vaulted heights
Where Old is overcome with New
On which to set our sights

The ghost of days gone by
Can never touch the place
Where Mercy rends the roof of sky
With unmerited grace

Come then, for soon today
Is overcome with stars
And all its moments sealed away
In dust-collected jars

So, leave what was behind
Lest in its vain employ
We miss the perfect time to find
Love’s ever-present joy

© Janet Martin