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!

 

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.

Point of View (have-to or get-to)

I was immediately challenged while writing this...

Someone called and woke up Sleeping Baby and I had to...oops, got to, change my 'plans' 

(This is written with the remembrance that some things we simply 'have-to'!

But even in the dark parts we 'get-to' choose whether we trust the Light, right?)

Wherever we are going 

Whatever we must do

We choose its joy or burden

By a 'Have to' or 'get to' view

Perception picks the colors

Of gray or blue and gold

Where faith or fear will offer

A 'have-to' or 'get-to' mold

How simple seems the format

Where choice will soon become

The happiness or heartache

Of have-to or get to's sum

Janet Martin

inspired by this morning's devotional reading

 

To Today's Response Team...

“We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them”

 ― Epictetus

Nobody seemed to mind that it was no one's birthday...

there was a candle they each had a turn to blow out,

there was singing and there was leftover cake with blue icing!

  

Touch it

Tease it

Taste it

Squeeze it

Shake it

Break it

Walk,

Leap,

Sit

Stumble-

Tumble

But

Don’t grumble

Life is what

We make of it

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on Choice and Circumstance...

We cannot always choose the hues

Of living’s tapestry

But it is up to us to use

Each color carefully

The high and low of joy and woe

We often must admit

Is not so much the status quo

As what we make of it

Each gifted day soon fades away

The gold and gray thereof

When woven through our do and say

Proves who and what we love

***

We ought not to fret when what we get

Is not what choice decreed

God will provide, not for our pride

But for our humble need

***

The more we get of what we want

The more we soon forget

The One we ought to depend on

No matter what life’s Let

***

Most oft the thing we would not choose

Becomes the medium that proves

In our response to circumstance

If we believe in God or chance

***

Our choice to circumstance will shape

The scenes in memory’s landscape

Then help us Lord, in every quest

To remember where choice will rest

***

Time is of the essence

An essence none can see

Save in the constant presence

Where choice shapes history

 ***

When temptation would turn our eyes

From wisdom and discretion’s prize

Lord, as we contemplate its choice

Help us to heed Your still, small Voice

Lest, alas, we look back too late

As consequence swings wide its gate

***

Be careful what you do

Be careful what you say

To see this conquest through

Be prayerful every day

***

Joy, a kin to sorrow

Sorrow, kin to joy

One without the other cannot be, 

Dear girl and boy 

***

We can choose to love

But to be loved

We cannot force

Love unreturned

Is possible

Only through love’s Source

 ***

Not matter what this day may bring

Or where upon its way we trod

Our choices are the offering

That at day’s end, we bring to God

© Janet Martin

Perspective

Bit of a chuckle just now as Victoria lay on the kitchen floor and said, ‘from this angle it could be summer, cause all I can see is green on the tree. No snow!’

We are having a snow day in the area with buses cancelled; not much snow so far. My hunch is it’s more of a ‘hockey day’ than a snow day. I know some places that are letting their guys quit early to catch the game in Sochi between Canada and the U.S.A.

It’s not so much the thing that is

As how we choose to look at it

Circumstance is but the half

We can sing the blues or laugh

Everything lasts 'just a bit'

Life is what we make of it

© Janet Martin

This is not intended to be glib but relating to our trite complaining grounds…I know some people who are dealing with life’s big stuff one step at a time and even what they can make of it hurts. ((hugs/prayers))

...off to watch the game;) 

What We Can Choose

So much in life we cannot choose

We ought not sulk or brood

For all the things we cannot change

We choose our attitude

The gray and gold we all must bear

In our allotted part

Our attitude molds and reveals

Reflections of the heart

Take heed for now the unknown spills

In mute half-breath unfolding

We cannot choose life’s good or ill

In moments we are holding

But for all that we cannot choose

We ought not sulk or brood

For everything that comes our way

We choose our attitude

© Janet Martin

I’ve heard men boast with bloated chests at what ‘they own’.

Beware; we have what God allots to test who we become…

We cannot judge by the facade of things, life’s ill or good

We all go by the grace of God; we choose our attitude

A comment on my previous poem We Cannot Choose let me to contemplate the things we have control over and I was stunned to realize that we do not really have control over anything...but our attitude.  

 All go to one place; all are of the dust and all go to dust again. Eccles. 3:20