Only The Best Will Do or Perfect Best

This is the time of year

we start wracking our brains for perfect gifts

because only the best will do when it comes to saying

'I love you'

When considering our efforts of finding 'the best'

doesn't it evoke a picture of God, 

before that first Christmas morn,

looking down on the world, 

His heart shattered with love as He wept,

for He knew 'only the Best will do!'

when it came to proving His love

 for me and for you!

Matt.1:21

And she will bring forth a Son,

 and you shall call His name JESUS,

 for He will save His people from their sins.”

I LOVE the lyrics to the song below

First Christmas Morn

This is the time of year

Unlike the whole year through

When we choose gifts for loved ones dear

Only the best will do

In this season of love

Boxes and bags become

Vaults filled with motley treasures of

Socks, books, toys, candy, gum

Presents are squirreled away

In unsuspecting nooks

A kind of game that parents play

Lest Curious Youngster looks

Reason softens its stance

As love and prudence wrest

As budgets and hearts spar and dance

To find The Perfect Best

The Perfect Best is love

Therefore, love longs to show

The best it can, reflections of

First Christmas, long ago

When Heaven’s Perfect Best

God’s equal, put on man

Knowing the cost, did not contest

Salvation’s perfect plan

Because God loved us so

On that first Christmas morn

Into this sin-cursed world of woe

A Redeemer was born

For God looked from above

And He saw me and You

And said, as His heart broke with love

‘Only the Best will do’

So, God gave us a King

A gift beyond all ken

His only Son, Jesus, to bring

Peace and goodwill to men

A gift that saves the soul

And flings ajar a Gate

That leads to faith’s ultimate goal

Where God and heaven wait

Then pray, this time of year

We rev’rently recall

The Reason for the season, dear

The gift that says it all

For things are only things

Love is the Perfect Best

The gift that only Jesus brings

Makes perfect, all the rest

© Janet Martin

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that

He gave us His only begotten son,

that whosoever believes in Him

should not perish but have everlasting life

Phil.2:5-8

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus:

6Who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped,a

7but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross.

For We, Four-Season Lovers

 

As 'winter' descended with a vengeance this week

conversations turned season-ward...ready or not, winter always comes!

I hope/try to be a four-season lover both literally and metaphorically!

For everything we love in seasons that never stay,

each season holds so many unexpected and lovely surprises

if we keep our hearts, arms, ears and eyes open!

Yesterday I lingered over this tray of autumn-gourds,

aka, the Creator's creations

I was reluctant to trade them for more Christmas-flavored décor...

...but then, Christmas joy cheers autumn sorrow!

though, subconsciously I am already preparing for the pangs, when the time comes 

of tucking away dried orange slices and cookie-cutter stars,

(however, it feels like I just did that and here we are, hanging them once more!!!)

For we, four-season lovers

Of green, gold, red and white

Of constantly bowled over

By waves of sheer delight

Of shamelessly confounded

By annual buffets

Of creation unbounded

To enchant and amaze

Of thought, agog with wonder

Of hearts taken by storm

As God turns mortal thunder

To worship’s purest form

Of love’s aleatory

Hymn, from we, humbly awed

At fringes of the glory

And majesty of God

For we, four-season lovers

That grapple with heart-ties

Tangled in fields of clover

And colors of sunrise

And friendships, forged with flits of

Petalled and feathered things

And all the lovely bits of

Beauty each season brings

From spring’s green-misted bowers

To summer’s butterflies

To autumn’s tattered flowers

To winter’s wooly skies

We find fresh exclamations

Of gladness to console

Farewells. Joy heals abrasions

Where love had left a hole

For we, four-season lovers

Imbibed with glints of time

As thankfulness discovers

Life’s commonplace sublime

To startle us with laughter

Rather than vain laments

As God regales both rafter

And deep, with excellence

His goodness fills each season

With His marvelous ways

To kindle perfect reason

To praise Him all our days

To give Him more than merely

Religion’s austere nod

But rather worship dearly

Our four-season God

© Janet Martin

To give Him more than merely

Religion’s austere nod

But rather worship dearly

Our four-season God...

Ps.147

Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; 

for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.

The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.

Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:

Who covereth the heaven with clouds, 

who prepareth rain for the earth, 

who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.

He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.

He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.

The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.

For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.

He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.

He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.

He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.

He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?

He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.

He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.

He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them.

 Praise ye the Lord.

Ears to Hear...Today's Song (and a funny video of my grandson's reaction to the snow!)

Where muffled footsteps fall

En route to find a perch

To revel in the madrigal

In nature’s perfect church...

…to listen as we should

(for time’s timing is keen)

To sermons from the winnowed wood...

That once stood, lush and green

Snow-lovers are singing winter's praises this morning!🎜🎝🎝❄❄❄

(the video doesn't pick up the excited and what I am interpreting as happy tweet-tweets😊)

other's not so much💖😂😂😂

Lord, grant us ears to hear

The melodies of life

Help us find today’s song, so dear

From orchestras run rife

In hush of morn beguiled

By rush of notes dusk quells

In darling laughter of a child (or other sounds of a child😂)

In chimes of Christmas bells

Lord, give us ears to hear

Sacred commonplace lays

That kindle in the eye a tear

And set heart-hearths ablaze

The tea, as it is poured

The click of spoons in cups

Symphonies all ears can afford

To cheer life’s downs with ups

The heave of billows borne

On time’s four-season tide

The brittle leaves in sheaves of corn

Snow-truffled countryside

Where muffled footsteps fall

En route to find a perch

To revel in the madrigal

In nature’s perfect church

…to listen as we should

(for time’s timing is keen)

To sermons from the winnowed wood

That once stood, lush and green

To treasure tenderly

The timbre of ‘hello’

Before the solemn harmony

Of final farewells flow

Lord, give us ears to hear

The cries of those in need

Your still, small Voice to counter fear

And condemn lust and greed

Lord, grant us ears to hear

Beyond the noise of strife

The tempo of love’s songs so dear

Tuning the joys of life

© Janet Martin

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Matt.11:15

Through The Ups and Downs of 'Becoming'

Nothing in life stays the same for long, does it?!

Seasons change. People change.

Change is constant but something I read this morning reminded readers

that rather than just seeing ourselves, or situations as changing, 

to view it as 'becoming'.

This attitude helps us be more merciful and prudent 

with both ourselves and others!

So off we go to meet the ups and downs of

a new day and a new week, of Becoming

all by the changeless grace of our changeless, loving God.

p.s. it's worth every precious while we take

to think about how much God loves us!

Doesn't the canvas of a new day sometimes almost take your breath away,

considering humankind's track-record?!!

Oh, the ups and downs of living

Oh, the cups that fill and drain

As torrents of take-and-giving

Rush hearts with pleasure and pain

Oh, the highs and lows of loving

Oh, the ties that strain and bend

In the thick and quick of proving

Love’s faithfulness to the end

Oh, the Yet of have-and-holding

Oh, the letting go it bears

Teaching us the art of folding

Life-long learning into prayers

Oh, the tug of wars we weather

Oh, the hug that bids release

Oh, the testing of love’s tether

As God works its masterpiece

Oh, the rise and fall of laughter

Oh, the prize and gall of tears

Caught between before and after 

While a lifetime disappears 

Oh, love's fumbles, oh, life's stumbles

Oh, the bumbles we repeat (or, oh, the humble pies we eat)

While God's grace and goodness tumbles

New 'becoming' 'neath our feet 

Oh, the beauty of His favor

Oh, the duty of reply

Oh, the love of Christ, our Saviour's

'Upsy-daisy, here am I 

Through the ups and downs of living

In the cups that fill and drain

With torrents of take-and-giving

Here am I to help again'

© Janet Martin

May we take heart through

Solomon's Benediction, as relevant now as then!

1 Kings 8:54-61

Solomon’s Benediction

54Now when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the LORD,

he got up before the altar of the LORD,

where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

55And he stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:

56“Blessed be the LORD, who has given rest to His people Israel

according to all that He promised.

Not one word has failed of all the good promises

He made through His servant Moses.

57May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers.

May He never leave us nor forsake us.

58May He incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways

and to keep the commandments and statutes

and ordinances He commanded our fathers.

59And may these words with which I have made my petition before the LORD

be near to the LORD our God day and night,

that He may uphold the cause of His servant

 and of His people Israel as each day requires, 

60so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God.

There is no other!

61So let your heart be fully devoted to the LORD our God,

as it is this day, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments.”

Love and Learning's Celebration

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Today is like an invitation to 

so much joy still left to taste

because joy is unlike most delights we seize 

and devour and then,

 they disappear!

One of my most dearly loved chapters was part of today's bible-in-a-year reading!

1 Pet.1:8

Though you have not seen him, you love him; 

and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him 

and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,...

1 Pet. 1:21

Through him you believe in God, 

who raised him from the dead and glorified him,

 and so your faith and hope are in God.

In this life of love and learning

Rife with delight and dismay

May the Maker of each morning

Kindle gladness for today

May the Harbinger of Heaven

Fill our days with holy worth

For to know we are forgiven

Is the greatest joy on earth

Today unfolds like a flower

Hour-petals fade and fall

Unlike delights we devour

Joy transcends the tangible

Unlike moments softly drifting

Like snowflakes that melt away

God instills dawn’s daily gifting

With joy hinged to Endless Day

We know there is no returning

To estrangement’s yester-place

Today is for love, and learning

Fresh arrangements of God’s grace

Dawn is like an invitation

To what we ought never waste

Love and learning’s celebration

Of so much joy still to taste

© Janet Martin

1 Pet. 1:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope

 through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. 

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded

 by God’s power until the coming of the salvation 

that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 

6 In all this you greatly rejoice, 

though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 

7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—

of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—

may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

I love old books by or about pastors that share wisdom and humor

forged from fellowship and challenges of family and flock!

such as the book I am reading right now...

saying no to a 'money-career' offer, after devastating loss of a hurricane

to a disillusioned doctor who was trying to wash/swim

 his troubles away in the ocean every morning...

to a young girl going down a bad way...

Everlasting Thanksgiving Feast

Happy Thanksgiving to  my American Friends 🦃💖🙏

and to everyone because with so much to be thankful for,

every day is a good day for giving thanks

Ps.119:89-91

Your word, O LORD, is everlasting;

it is firmly fixed in the heavens.

Your faithfulness continues through all generations;

You established the earth, and it endures.

Your ordinances stand to this day,

for all things are servants to You.

Jer.31:3

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: 

“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; 

Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

Ps.90:2

Before the mountains were brought forth, 

Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, 

Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

Today is like a table lowered, lavished with a feast...

(Some feast-fragments' that helped inspire today's poem/hymn)

For laughter, glorious laughter to counter life’s lack with cheer

For friends, for cups of tea while mirth and miseries are shared...

(the tea was what I have dubbed Garden Tea, Dried mint, lavender, fennel and marigold)

For hues that tell the season without calendars and such...

Like a place to call home-sweet-home,

 ...like love of families

Today is like a table lowered, lavished with a feast

Into the fray of circumstance mercy’s buffet is borne/born

Once more God bares His loving heart, for greatest to the least

Faithful and true, His grace imparts the majesty of morn

For love’s un-stoppered boundlessness, thankfulness overflows

For promises unaltered by the course of centuries

For smorgasbords of blessing to brighten world-full-of- woes

Like a place to call home-sweet-home, like love of families

For seasons not yet cast in Past’s Big Book of Moments Spent

For hope and joy and peace, by God’s eternal Word, secured

For joy still set before us until time’s frail veil is rent

And we behold the everlasting glory of the Lord

For laughter, glorious laughter to counter life’s lack with cheer

For friends, for cups of tea while mirth and miseries are shared

For wonder’s sheer delight that only God can commandeer

For elixir of poetry as ink-inklings are snared

For flowerpots, for curious tots with lots of questions why

For Duty’s common ground crowned by heaven-wide masterpiece

For the rare afternoon that hangs a hammock from the sky

And bids us climb aboard before dusk snuffs its glorious lease

For nature’s tapestries that awe the soul and stun our gaze

For tranquil woodland wander-lands free from wordy demands

For tea kettles that sing as if this is the-good-ole-days

For humble testimonies uttered my work-calloused hands

For kitchens heady with aromas, we will soon destroy

As we smack lips and scrape and lick dinner platters and trays

For Christmas-time-a-coming and glad tidings of great joy

For heads that bow and hearts that still and spill in thankful praise

For hues that tell the season without calendars and such

For dues that mortal reason will never quite apprehend/comprehend

For more than we can name or tame with thought’s deficient touch

We gather into worship hymns we pray will never end

Where today, like a table is lowered from He who fed

Thousands, with five loaves and two fish, yet twelve baskets remained

Lord, remind us that it is You who grants our daily bread

Lest we forget, and live as if the feast was self-attained

Behold, today is like a table, love and kindness-graced 

Behold, goodness and mercy flows, for greatest to the least

A smorgasbord of favors and flavors for us to taste  

Like honored guests at an Everlasting, Thanksgiving Feast 

© Janet Martin

So Much To Be Thankful For...Josh Groban

Moment-sum Momentum or Pleasure of Enough

I linger intentionally these days;

days that time flies through!

'oops! Sorry gramma!'

He kissed Baby Jesus and said 'nap' and put Him back to His mommy😘😍

...suddenly the momentum of moment-sums soft-rouse

A kinship with November’s sparser sweeps...

 and barren boughs...

I linger more; I cannot bear to hurry you because

You slip through hearts and fingers like autumn’s dying applause

Of wind-strummed leaf and harvest’s remnant sheaf, frost-brittle where

Not long ago you frolicked on spring meadows, green and fair

…and trembled in bud-bowers full of flowers to unfold

You tickled us with hours while turning the new year old

You leaped from fallow furrows, clothed earth in a gleaming gown

Before we sheared each field like sheep, and begged of you, ‘slow down’

Sometimes we mourn the way you steal the seasons you beget

Yet in your age-old ways you heal the very wounds you let

With rise and fall and ebb and flow of morn to eventide

You tame once hurried footsteps; bid us to regard each stride

…and so I linger more, while you run fearless fingers through

The tatters of a sigh, an autumn sky deep, denim-blue

Where suddenly the momentum of moment-sums soft-rouse

A kinship with November’s sparser sweeps and barren boughs

Dear Father Time, each season awes us with so much to love

And so I slow my pace to taste The Pleasure of Enough

And linger more to look and feel and learn what you would teach 

Before moment-momentum melds to reels beyond my reach

© Janet Martin

You leaped from fallow furrows, clothed earth in a gleaming gown

Before we sheared each field like sheep, and begged of you, ‘slow down’...

Our neighbor's dog is our dog too esp. when it comes to treats!

 He knows if he waits long enough

Mrs. Janet will, without fail, find a treat for him😅😂💓

and he is always eager to give me a big, wet, smelly farm-dog kiss of appreciation

(if I let him😝)

Rejoice and Be Glad Kick-off to a New Week

The passage below can't help but kindle holy hope and joy in our hearts!

Ps.130:1-5

Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD!

2O Lord, hear my voice;

let Your ears be attentive to my plea for mercy.

3If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities,

then who, O Lord, could stand?

4But with You there is forgiveness,

so that You may be feared.

5I wait for the LORD; my soul does wait,

and in His word I put my hope.

***

This month's Sunday School Verse

for grades 1-6 is pretty awesome too!

(Picturing this scene is rather beyond thought's comprehension, isn't it?!!)

Every living thing shouting God's praise!

Rev.5:13

Then I heard every creature in heaven 

and on earth

 and under the earth 

and on the sea, 

and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne 

and to the Lamb

be praise and honor 

and glory and power,

for ever and ever!”

The above verse, and

 Saturday night's sunset...

...and a lot of unexpected beauty and joy

 in the middle of love's/duty's muddle...

helped to inspire this poem💝🙏

This is the day the Lord has made

Let joy and gladness brim

As we pick up our tools of trade

To humbly honor Him

Because no matter what we do

However great or small

It is enough when offered to

Our gracious Lord of all

Today unfurls love’s living rooms

Let’s make them fit for kings

Where each season profusely blooms

With joy in simple things

And life’s secret to happiness

Is not for favored few

But for each heart when thankfulness

Runs every corner through

Behold, goodness and mercy’s fount

Its measure, who can trace?

Where none could stand if God would count

Our sins without His grace

But He forgives all who repent

His pardon never fails

Thus, joy and gladness cease lament

As thankfulness prevails

This is the day the Lord has made

By His sovereign command

Majesty's grandeur is displayed

On sky and sea and land

And only a fool dares to boast

In what God grants to we

Who are at best, need’s uttermost

Subjects of love’s decree

Then, in light of God’s faithful love

That, through good times and bad

Replenishes Reason Enough

To rejoice and be glad

Surely hope’s undeterred reply

Is to fill all our days

Not with the bitterness of ‘why’

But with joy’s thankful praise

© Janet Martin

today's tools of trade at my house include

empty jars and apples,

paring knife, peeler, bowls and pots etc.!

The goal?!

Canned apple pie-filling😋😊

Our apple tree receives no extra TLC besides

what the Good Lord grants in sun and rain.

 So whatever I preserve with apples are usually apples I have purchased.

This year (due to lots of rain?)

 our tree has a bumper crop of mostly un-wormy,

what I have dubbed 'play-apples'.

Last week I dried some ...(google how to oven-dry apples)

...and also did my first ever batch of pie-filling!

It is delicious! 

I hope to share the recipe on a future post!

Gifted Gravity...

 

2 Cor.6:1-2

As God’s fellow workers,a then, we urge you

not to receive God’s grace in vain.

  2For He says:

“In the time of favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”b

Behold, now is the time of favor;

 now is the day of salvation!

Come to Jesus

Sometimes, sorrow for lost souls

is almost more than hearts can bear,

But love clings to love's sacred sorrow

and turns its tears to prayer on prayer

***

Night’s dark wave on dawn’s shoreline breaks

Shadows are drawn away

A tide of humanity wakes

To face another day

To tread the Sands of Time that brace

A very sacred Verge

Where morning thunders with God’s grace

Where slumbering masses surge

The Preacher cries in Jesus’ Name

‘Awake!’ where footsteps roll

Past gaping graves that soon will tame

The dust, but not the Soul

Alas, the House of Prayer, has turned

Into a den of thieves

The faith that saves obtusely spurned

For a handful of leaves/sheaves

The Son is trodden underfoot

Understanding defiled

Where wrong is right and evil good

Opprobrium runs wild

‘Repent, repent!’ The preacher pleads

While the proud crowds rebel

And poison Innocence with creeds

That lead to death and hell

The ears that hear are far and few

So too, the eyes that see

Yet, morning breaks, and stirs anew

Time’s gifted gravity

Light shines into the dark once more

Hope takes a holy breath

Where Sands of Time compose a shore

That cannot withstand death

Behold, Salvation’s Day unfurled

From greatest to the least

Life cries into a dying world

Dawn spills a mercy-feast

Again, the Patient Preacher takes

Love's post most tenderly

For lost souls, on the verge that breaks

Into eternity

© Janet Martin

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise,

 as some understand slowness. 

Instead he is patient with you,

 not wanting anyone to perish, 

but everyone to come to repentance.

Rescue the Perishing

Like Nature's Rendition of The Last Post

 

Something about the early dark of November kindles nostalgia...

Sometimes, like an old song a bygone era reappears

To replay on a phantom stage fond scenes of yesteryears

To coax back into being what will never be again

Save in a book of memories we open now and then

If only to remind ourselves not to get lost too long

In the bittersweet ballad of an intangible song

Wafting upon the starkness of an Autumn eventide

After leaf-notes have fluttered from the treetops where they sighed

...all summer long, like a love song we took for granted till

Whispers were winnowed one by one and everything was still

Save a gripping rendition of the Last Post being played

For fallen leaves; and moments and the melodies they made

© Janet Martin