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
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