An Anniversary Celebration of Sonnets

 37 years...

Thank-you, Lord

 

This photo was taken at my niece's wedding on May 24th,

where we gathered to witness the marriage and celebrate

Newlyweds, 

who were sparkling with visions of marital bliss 

dancing in their heads!

All of us who have been married for

well, really, almost any amount of time know

'till death doth part' takes more than we can successfully

and beautifully accomplish on our own!

But with God nothing is impossible!

Especially faithful love,

which He is the Author of! 

Below is Jim's 'home away from home'

contributing often to the successes and challenges 

of marriage and love's second miles

(pun intended 😅💓 )

He left yesterday morning with plans of picking up a load out west!

On Sunday night after returning home from a family reunion

I cooked and baked a week's worth of supplies

Last night the load got cancelled 😒

He will be returning home tonight if all goes as planned.

And such is life

***

So much of life is out of our hands

But never love; love helps us bear all things

Not with determined and selfish demands

But with the strength that self-surrender brings 

Love, a story that begins in the heart

 Soon finds its feet as blindness starts to see

To pull together lest we drift apart

Takes sacrificing 'I' for 'us' and 'we'

Love never runs out of lessons to teach

No one can outlive its so-much-to-learn 

Then, before one of us is out of reach

Let's make the most of each day's no-return 

Before the solemn sundering of ties

Forever closes doors and lips and eyes 

© Janet Martin

***

1 Cor.13:4-8  (NKJV)

Love suffers long and is kind; 

love does not envy; 

love does not parade itself,

 is not [a]puffed up;

 5 does not behave rudely, 

does not seek its own,

 is not provoked, 

[b]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...

Darling, in a world mad with lust and spite

Let's make a vow to guard against the trend 

Committing rather to fight love's good fight  

By God's grace to be faithful to the end 

Darling, the world will never sympathize

With altars filled with ash of sacrifice 

Love suffers long and is kind; what a prize

True love esteems the other; what a price 

Darling, to-have-and-hold is no small fete 

To love-and-cherish until death doth part

Is not a vacation on Easy Street

Nor an endeavor for the faint of heart

Darling, let's give love every finest chance

And live life humbly, by the grace God grants

© Janet Martin

Eccles.4:12

... and a three strand cord is not quickly broken.

Armed with a world of wonderful advice

Is not enough to master love's success

Until we learn love's law of sacrifice

Marriage will suffer much unhappiness 

Fond hopes and dreams are lovely to behold 

But life does not cater to Well-laid Plan 

Its highway does not flawlessly unfold

According to the want and wish of man 

The ups and downs of love and life are sure

Marriage takes two people, humanly-flawed

And binds them with ties able to endure

If woven with the third strand who is God

Darling, let's pray through both life's grand and grim 

That our love reflects the love of Him

© Janet Martin

And last but not least, 

after many somber reminders this past year+

through many sudden losses of  Husband or Wife of

neighbours, friends and family,

 a sonnet of solemn awareness/thankfulness...

***

No one can see or guarantee Tonight 

Death often enters/visits where/when we least expect

Sobering us with meek, wiser insight;

Love, both a charge and gift none should neglect 

Each day pulses with opportunity

To love each other better, and God first 

To make the most of little words like 'we'

And weather faithfully life's best and worst 

So when death comes (and it most surely will)

Our deepest sorrow will not be regret

But, as the bitter tears of parting spill

We praise God for the joy of love's vows kept 

 

Darling, while time is still on our side

Let's try our best to live love Self-denied 

© Janet Martin

O Perfect Love - Best Wedding Hymn with Lyrics 

Lyrics-Dorothy F. Gurney

1 O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,

lowly we kneel in prayer before thy throne,

that theirs may be the love which knows no ending,

whom thou in sacred vow dost join in one.

2 O perfect Life, be thou their full assurance

of tender charity and steadfast faith,

of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,

with childlike trust that fears no pain or death.

3 Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow;

grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife;

grant them the vision of the glorious morrow

that will reveal eternal love and life.

Psalter Hymnal, 1987