For Oh, So Many Ways We Didn’t Dream (That Love Would Be)

Happy Valentine's Day!!💘

But, as I type this greeting

my heart aches for those who, from our vantagepoint

seem to have their love stories cut short far too soon!

It reminds me to humbly treasure the measure of Today 

and all its opportunities to 'love one another'!

John 13:34
A new commandment I give you:

 Love one another. 

As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.

And so worth every prick of thorn to marvel at the rose...

Love is full of surprises, no matter what age we reach

Always so many new lessons it seems, still left to teach

For Love is a like a tutor, often testing you and me

With oh, so many ways we didn’t dream that love would be

No respecter of rank or race, or ‘reason-right’ retort

Love is patient and kind; all other replies fall far short

Thus, we learn to adjust the dust-scaffold of darling dreams

Because we are all subject to the laws that love esteems

Love is a lifelong (not a once-and-done) ladder we climb

As faithfulness fulfills its calling one step at a time

No easy-out, no masquerade, no detour to the prize

Love vexes Best of Dreamers with Lessons in Compromise

‘I’m sorry, dear, your favorite jeans are laundered but still wet’

‘Honey, why do you toss the keys, who-knows-where, then forget’

And why are we so stubborn in love’s sudden tug-of-wars

Instead of letting love be strong enough to settle scores

There is no finer splendor than love, weathered by its toll

Love, such a tender mender of the wounds of heart and soul

And so worth every effort dressed in plain workaday clothes

And so worth every prick of thorn to marvel at the rose

And so worth every task, that, without love would drive us mad

And so worth every up and down that we have ever had

And so worth every sacrifice, to safeguard vows we made

And recognize the precious bloom of ‘Now’ that soon will fade

Love crowns the commonplace with words like ‘friend’ and ‘family’

It treasures every day rife with fresh opportunity

It does not envy, does not boast, it is not proud or rude

And often reaps an awed reward of humble gratitude

Where, in the aftermath of stumbles we begin to learn

(In the light of God’s mercy,) love is not something we earn

But, because of its Author, love befits us faithfully

For oh, so many ways we didn’t dream that love would be

© Janet Martin

The Vows Scene in the movie

Woman of the  Year

Holds great reminders for all of us

loving/living out our own journeys of 

'for better or worse till death doth part'

Are you wearing red?

Asked Jim when he called this morning...

No. I replied, but I'm wearing fuzzy pink pjs with hearts on them

if that counts for something😂😂😍💗

(You know the ones I mean, ladies, right?!

Completely comfy but not much in the line of attractiveness??)

As we chatted about life's Glorious Ordinary,

plus a few extra ups and downs

today's poem gathered steam!!

As youth sheds its green and then middle-age, its gold

something far more precious

than first meets the eye, 

begins to unfold...

I will try to unearth something red to wear for

a very special dinner tonight,

 (no matter what is served at our kitchen table )

because Jim, most often gone on Valentine's Day,

 is planning to be home tonight!

1 Cor.13

 (My Favourite Love Poem)

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, 

I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, 

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 

but have not love, I am nothing. 

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, 

and though I give my body [a]to be burned, 

but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; 

love does not envy; 

love does not parade itself, 

is not [b]puffed up; 

5 does not behave rudely, 

does not seek its own, 

is not provoked, [c]thinks no evil; 

6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 

7 bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things.

8 Love never fails. 

But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; 

whether there are tongues, they will cease; 

whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 

10 But when that which is [d]perfect has come,

 then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child,

 I spoke as a child, 

I understood as a child, 

thought as a child; 

but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, 

but then face to face. 

Now I know in part, 

but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; 

but the greatest of these 

is love.