Mercy's Perpetual Providence

‘If I could turn back time’, she said

‘I’d return to that place’

But moments do not reimburse

Or barter with their grace

Mercy’s perpetual providence

Moments; brief yet benign

And only in our looking back

Do we see their design

How miniscule the offering seems

In tick-tock allotment

How easily Time spills its reams

Without acknowledgement

But oh, the tempo of that tide

When gathered in the past

Returns oft to remind us how

Moments slip by so fast

‘If I could turn back time’, she said

‘I’d return to that place’

Oh, treasure carefully the Now

Ere new moments give chase

© Janet Martin

My daughter lost a friend she knew briefly and oh, so dearly! They counseled together at camp for 3 weeks and kept in touch through letters. Yesterday this girl’s life of up-hill moments ended tragically and far too soon!

In her Facebook tribute to Jess, Melissa used the words, ‘if I could turn back Time and return to that place’…

This poem spoke to me today...

Sometime

May Riley Smith (1842?–1927)

SOMETIME, when all life’s lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned,
The things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet,
Will flash before us, out of life’s dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God’s plans are right,
And how what seems reproof was love most true.
And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh,
God’s plans go on as best for you and me;
How, when we called, he heeded not our cry,
Because his wisdom to the end could see.
And e’en as prudent parents disallow
Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now
Life’s sweetest things, because it seemeth good.
And if sometimes, commingled with life’s wine,
We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine
Pours out this potion for our lips to drink.
And if some friend we love is lying low,
Where human kisses cannot reach his face,
Oh, do not blame the loving Father so,
But wear your sorrow with obedient grace!
And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath
Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friend,
And that, sometimes, the sable pall of death
Conceals the fairest bloom his love can send.
If we could push ajar the gates of life,
And stand within, and all God’s workings see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.
But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart!
God’s plans like lilies pure and white unfold.
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart,
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,
I think that we will say, “God knew the best!”