And The Crowd Goes Wild

Sum of a Year

Wink-blink

Ope-close

Here it is

And there it goes!

Like mist that melts from morning’s verge

Like airborne-tides that ebb and surge

From dawn to dusk dust leaves its mark

Like sparks that spiral on the dark

As expectation’s hopeful cheer

Reflects upon a soldered year

Of heaven-tendered highs and lows

From its first scene to curtain close

The crowd goes wild, stands to applaud

The unwavering grace of God

Eyes fixed upon a mystic Door

Where nobody has been before

Where faith, not fear will be our Guide

For Love Unfailing will preside

Hallelujah.

Amen

© Janet Martin

Happy Last-day-of-2018!

a tender look back on what has been

 As humble hope hails Majesty

From a highway hinged to eternity

All cupped in the Ever-Able Hands

Of He who pours and snuffs time's sands 

 Jude 1:21
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

The One Thing We Can Always Choose; Response

Not gonna lie

Oh, some days I

Could fill the sky

With loud lament

But would good is

A tantrum’s hiss

But proof of this

Proud discontent

We cannot choose each circumstance

Only response to what it grants

© Janet Martin

Two examples of response from the Bible that always impact and humble me; 

one from the Old Testament...

Job Loses His Health

Then Job's wife said to him,

 “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

 He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. 

Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" 

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Job 2:9-10

...and one from the New

This is from the story of the angel coming to Mary,

 a young virgin, to tell her she will have a baby,

 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. 

 Luke 1:38

and, on the bright side, this piece of art was lying on the driveway this morning!

 

A Fine Intermingling

  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, 

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they? 

 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matt.6:26-27

 

The way flood waters rise and ebb leaving drenched aftermath

The way the wind will leave chaos in its riotous path

The way the sun will rise and set tinting the land and sea

And stealing our very breath amidst adversity

This is the way of love and life; Beauty and brokenness

A fine mingling of joy and strife and chosen happiness

Where fear will drive its victims mad but faith will set us free

Where hope will make our hunger gladder than doubt’s misery

Where what we cannot see ahead is like a tender dare

To trust in He who calms our dread and hears each humble prayer

This is the way of love and life; fine-mingled want and need

As we surrender He provides His strength to intercede

© Janet Martin

Ignorance is Bliss But It Won't Fix The Problem...

This morning as I blithely wrote about being gladder than we sometimes are 

 I was oblivious to the lake in the basement…

Last night I painted a poem about Midnight Rain(ha-ha, I even mentioned flood-gates😏)

 as it pelted the window and I couldn’t sleep
and I didn’t know then that the sump pump hose was clogged with ice
and Rain Poetry would lose its Romanticism in an instant,

 simply by going down to the freezer to take out a pound of ground beef for supper.

I went out for coffee/shopping with a friend
thinking the flood had been retained in the ‘old’ part of our basement,
not the rec room. I was wrong!

 (I've been researching how to paint cement-floors.
That idea is starting to sound very appealing😐)

I'm tired of 'let's lift the rug' game!

Because we cannot see into tomorrow we are free

To not borrow the 'sorrow' that is waiting yet to be

To not double our trouble by ‘what if’s’ futile distress

But take the day in hand and try to find its happiness

Tomorrow Today’s good or ill will compose yesterday

And who knows what is waiting to spill from time’s refilled tray

So by the grace of God we go, and if we let Him lead

He will provide at the right time, exactly what we need

 (in this case, mops, fans, a roaring mother, oops, I mean, fire;-)

© Janet Martin

So much for a cozy, Christmas-y room...

Oh well, then I remember those with real troubles.

A Hymn For Him Inspired by Farewell-fired 'Things'

The line in this poem; *And coffee with a slice of cheese
Was inspired by my being deliciously spoiled this Christmas
with two of my most favorite things in the world... Coffee and cheese!

This poem is a little collection of this spent year's mementos ...

For jars filled with forget-me-nots

For flower pots on windowsills

For innocence of tiny tots

For wonder’s unexpected thrills

For circle-notes on puddled lane

For leaf-boats on its little lakes

For laughter’s silver-sparkle strains

For supper soup and birthday cakes

For scenes that twinkle through our touch

But rest forever in the heart

For everyone we love so much

Whether together or apart

For hope for things to come, where Past

Has such a hearty appetite

Yet each day hoists a virgin mast

And bids us sail toward the night

Not swaddled yet in death’s cold bod

Not blindfolded or bound in chains

But free to see, hear and applaud

Each Masterpiece that God sustains

For the fond bond of true friendship  

For home-sweet-home and family

For August afternoons that drip

Like honey to a cup of tea

For wealth of health and strength for toil

For hard work’s well-earned beauty-sleep

For summer’s unmerited spoil

Where nature gifts what none can keep

For fuzzy socks and apple pie

*And coffee with a slice of cheese

For four-season wind-lullaby

And thousand unnamed luxuries

For what we understand, or not

Where we are all students of life

For Mercy’s unwavering lot

Reaffirmed where new day runs rife

For what we name and what we miss

Dear Lord, accept our hymn of praise

And keep us ever keened to this;

The Never-ending End of Days

For mantles made of morning mist

For candles made of autumn’s leaf

For the refurbished to-do list

For wrinkles proving Time is chief

For laughter of both heart and brook

For After Dark’s strange Art unfurled

For the barge of a story-book

And armchair, to travel the world

For Goodness none of us have earned

For lessons gleaned from what has been

For woods when springtime has returned

With sundry-splendored shades of green

For promises still being met

For awesomeness of simple things

Like buttered bread, common and yet

It makes us feel like queens and kings

For holding before letting go

For babies bouncing on our knee

For ‘always something we don’t know’

The beauty of Discovery

For Old Year tumbling from Time’s sill

For New Year’s intangible Yet

Like a big jar that we will fill

With flowers we still have not met

© Janet Martin