While My Body Grins and Groans (I want to take nothing for granted)

Recently I have heard more than one person say they don't want to take anything for granted!

I echo this sentiment in today's reflection of birthday celebration weekend.

Ps.90:12

So teach us to number our days, 

That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Thank-you God, for

 Fridge-foragers...

Father and son discussions (on the merits of certain hockey players etc.) 😅

Impromptu Sat. afternoon surprise coffee break... thank-you Emily and fam!

(Missed a pic of the delicious raspberry lemon scones, still oven-warm!)

Precious birthday-celebration dinner-guests...

 (my parents)

and Victoria...

 Dear Husband, May I never take you for granted

(too often, sadly, I do!)

esp. your hat-tossing habits 😐😏 which haven't changed

 since mentioned HERE on last year's anniversary poem...

Special sister time...

even more special in a peony garden !

Whistling Gardens near Brantford, ON

(below, a few of fifty+ pics of peonies)

Sister smelling the 'roses' while her hubby

scouts out ice-cream shops on homeward route 😊😂💖

I want to take nothing for granted in life's little Learn and Teach

Where soon each gifted day is planted in a garden out of reach

I want to wonder at God's grandeur; be mesmerized by His grace,

To be fine-tuned to tender splendour till nothing seems common place

Collecting through life's gains and losses, a much gladder gratitude   

Braving love's charge of shouldered crosses by trusting Mercy Renewed 

Contented in the Steadfast Knowing, come what may God never fails

His love is constantly bestowing winds to test and steer faith's sails

I want to take nothing for granted, where blooms briefly beam and nod 

But to be more humbly enchanted by the handiwork of God 

He, who attends both joy and sorrow maintains nature's threaded loom 

I want to live today without tomorrow's borrowed dread and doom 

I want to manifest His Presence in the peace of Letting Go

Where true happiness is, in essence, this; trusting His yes and no

Confident that the One who began a good work will see it through  

The Author of salvation's plan is faithful, trustworthy and true 

I want to take nothing for granted in life's leap from Him to Him 

Soon morning's newborn ray is slanted westward; soon Today grows dim

While epitaphs that time composes sets gasps in permanent ink

Like a storm of thorns and roses scattered, blood-red and blush-pink 

As breath-by-breath's brimming succession spills life's sacred, fleeting Toll

Wreathed by dust-to-dust's grim profession of death's claim of all but Soul 

So, before my hulled husk is planted in a garden of grave-stones

I want to take nothing for granted while my body grins and groans 

I do not want to take for granted the sheer wonder of it all

Or become dumbly disenchanted just because the petals fall

Or love's smile-and-tear weathered tether snaps; the ties that bind undone

By the Hand that brought us together; nothing new under the sun

Rousing us, Self-heady-prone dreamers to face raw reality

Time's transient flash of  vapour/paper streamers unhinges eternity 

So, while life's precious plot is planted with memories that love makes 

I do not want to take for granted that which God both gives... and takes 

© Janet Martin

I do not want to take for granted the sheer wonder of it all

Or become dumbly disenchanted just because the petals fall...

Thank-you God, for another birthday...

Thank-you for sisters/family and friends

 who showered me with beautiful birthday wishes

and flowers...

I came home yesterday, a bit peony-high

to find a new variety of peony (Dark Eyes) a deep burgundy-red

 at my door, from my friend's garden!

thank-you Kim 💖

I was also sweetly blessed by a begonia-planter 

in memory of the begonias Lucy gave all of us sisters last year,

from my sister Marlene 💗💔

Some flowers in the hue of the flowers Lucy gave us sisters last year

(because the peachy-coloured begonias were sold out)

From my sister Carolyn...we 'watered' them with a few mingled, tender tears;

Love's universal language

I'll admit it was an extra-teary birthday.

I miss Lucy with profound tenderness in times like these

so I took out the book she gave me in place of a card last year...

 

Beyond Words

Whether our children are babies, adolescent,

teen, or adult a mother's love

is beyond spelling...

fierce and tender,

firm and gentle,

sweet and staunch,

watchful and brave,

forever and ever

I told Victoria that the poem I posted last week isn't really her 'official'

birthday poem, but every time I try to put my love into a poem

I am at a loss for words...

How does one spell the holy, humbling

deeps of love ?!

Dear mothers, you know that 'feeling', right?

As you look at your children, no matter their age

and you are rushed through with a tidal wave of

compassion, concern and thankfulness...

Mother's love is a language

commonly penned with the domestic ink

of cooking and baking,

cleaning and laundry,

and little extra-touches to make home

a gentle, orderly and happy place

that says

'I love you'

Victoria chuckled at the over-tanned smiley faces garnishing

one of our suppers last week...

It transcends tender thought

It defies utterance

It strains but yet has never wrought

Perfected eloquence

It fills a treasure trove

Where ink-penchant runs wild

But cannot tame to words, the love

Mother has for her child

It evades wistful rhymes

Medley of smiles and tears

And prayers to fill ten-thousand times

The cannikin of years

It gapes in grasping sighs

Through hold and letting go

It glints, like hints of paradise

Caught in a flake of snow

To write a mother’s love

Seems to elude Her pen

While evoking cries of 'enough

To try and try again'

To temper onto page

The ocean of the soul

To grant a glimpse of age to age 

Where wordless poems roll

 

© Janet Martin

3 John 1:4

 I have no greater joy than to hear 

that my children are walking in the truth.

Take a (Humbler) Moment...

Yesterday we celebrated our sweet Victoria's 24th Birthday

Every celebration (esp. since Sept. 17) is raw with humbler awareness 

of life's uncertainty/vulnerability...

My sister Lucy's husband and daughter were a special part

of the celebration; unspoken sorrow tuning our laughter

with kinder joy...

It is with unspeakable tenderness that we treasure the halo of faces

around a dinner table! 

 

(I'm not sure why the beginning and end of 

the song is cut off) oh, well...

***

Ah, take a moment, drink it in; the clime of Time is hasting

Its dawn-to-dusk designed to win the present we are tasting

Where nothing stays the same for long; each season, farewell-smitten

While deathless lyrics to Our Song of Life are being written

Sometimes, while in the bloom of love eyes close, never to waken

The loom that weaves The Mortal Glove, by God given and taken

Then, take a moment more to treasure the halo of faces

Around the table; prize love’s pleasure nothing else replaces

Behold the bud of virgin morn, like a flower unfolding

Where soon the bloom of it is borne to Bygone’s holy holding

Each bud a little like a door that God opens and closes

So, take a humbler moment more to thank Him for life’s roses

For no one knows the day nor hour He will bend without pardon

To pluck another precious flow’r from this world’s wanting garden

Then, drink with mindful regard from a fount filled by life’s Giver

With Ink of Moments that become Our Song of Life forever

Janet Martin

Acts 1:7

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons

that the Father has fixed by His own authority

( our community is in deep mourning once again;

last week a young husband and father of five,

lost his life in a tragic accident).

Behold the bud of virgin morn, like a flower unfolding

Where soon the bloom of it is borne to Bygone’s holy holding

Each bud a little like a door that God opens and closes

So, take a humbler moment more to thank Him for life’s roses...

God Bless You As You Celebrate...

I have four friends celebrating birthdays today!

A 70th, a 61st, a 50th, and a sweet young 30-something 💝

Happy Birthday, Karen, Debbie, Kim and Paula!

All of you have enriched my life immensely!

Esp. in the past 5 mos. 🙏

God bless you are you celebrate.

God bless you as you celebrate the gift each birthday brings

An opportunity to count the gifts we sometimes miss

For life is full of cares crowding to cloud love's finer things

Caught between hello hugs that lead to farewell's tender kiss

God bless you as you celebrate each face-to-face delight 

Let a firm handshake steal your breath, let laughter make you cry

With joy and thankfulness for everybody you hold tight

And never take for granted looking loved ones in the eye

God bless you are you celebrate another year complete

Where highs and lows collect in settled dust of Past, surreal 

And Today, Happy Birthday, grants a milestone, bittersweet

Because no one can hold at bay, Time's hastening appeal 

 

God bless you as you celebrate the give and take of love

And make the most of Here and Now, because we cannot see

How near or far we are to where the Soul slips off its glove

And leaves behind the precious treasure of A Memory

Love, from Janet 

And to all of us who have or will, 

Lord willing, celebrate a birthday this year!

Author unknown for the poem below...

Grief-frames

Happy 82nd Birthday, dear Mom born Nov.1, 1942

(photo credit on this post goes to my sister Marlene)

Yesterday, at my mother's annual birthday tea-party

the presence of each other seemed more treasured,

 our love more tender than ever before,

in the light of grief...

My mom asked if she could host it

(for the first time ever) in what has been a tradition

for SO many years!

If Lucy were here I could count on her to remember

when it started, who hosted it

and maybe even what she was wearing and

if/who she was pregnant with...

😅😂💖

She had an incredible memory!! 

Because mom hosted it, Dad could enjoy the celebration too 💝

(although we have another one on Sunday that includes our men as well)

Grief ebbs, then rushes in like a billow, invisible

It rolls through heart and soul with staggering intensity

It strips us of all pretense; Love's most severe crucible

As God, who IS love, tries the Part that He alone can see

Grief sends us on a journey we would never choose to take

Around and 'round a gaping void, veiled by façades, skin-thin

It winds heartstrings through phantom frames where echoes tug and ache

Woven from moments not unlike the moments we are in

Grief moans like autumn's lonely wind through woodlands, leaf-bereft

It sobs, like summer, silenced by its sum of Season-sand

From detonated dreamlands, it examines what is left

Sifting through drifts of rubble diamond-dust, where once Love laughed and planned

Grief teaches us to live with an 'if the Lord wills' regard

To love as if Today could be the last for you or me  

It stirs holier handling of dawn's invitation card

Because Today does not come with a Morrow-guarantee  

Grief metes Love's Must; relentless thrust of waves, dash-crash-recede 

Then, with renewed velocity, returns with wrenching pains 

To wander rooms, once full of Innocence we did not heed

Where now his/her essence of presence, like a shadow remains

Grief takes us to the arms of friends and family so dear

And it is no coincidence, it drives us to our knees

To draw us to The Sacred Solace of God's list'ning ear 

*And glimpses to the Inner Room of Heaven's Mysteries/Sympathies

Janet 💔🙏

The verses below comfort me constantly,

as I lift my wordless groans to God's intercession

Rom.8:26-27

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. 

We do not know what we ought to pray for, 

but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 

 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, 

because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people 

in accordance with the will of God.

Below, yesterday's timely and profound devotion

from the book Streams in the Desert, Vol.1

(* this devotion articulates splendidly, the last line in today's poem)

While I was working on this post

a friend sent me these words...

She is mourning the loss of a friend who passed away this week.

"God is so gracious and so tender,

 even though we might never get the ‘why’ on this side of heaven."

Thank-you, Joanne!

(Her friend was released from a brave battle with ALS)

And last but not least...

My mom with her salt and pepper shaker collection

200+ pairs!

Yesterday she invited each of us to choose a pair,

before she gives her grandchildren the opportunity to do the same

I chose these Siamese cats.

They have lived in my mother's china hutch since

before I was born.

From her friend Mary (Mrs. Abner Martin)

My two 'little sisters' enjoying their choices!

Lucy was the middle sister...

Moments Are Such Momentous Spheres...

It seems like a flicker; of moments that composed three decades 💖

We celebrated our second daughter's 30th birthday yesterday.

A little late, like most of our birthday celebrations this year!

Happy 30th Birthday, Melissa

Moments spill-sparkle from a fount

We cannot visualize

Like stars too copious to count

They glint in loved one’s eyes...

there's someone 'hidden' in the above photo...guess who??

clue in the photo below 😂😂

We missed Victoria who was enjoying a camping weekend with friends💛 

Moments are such momentous spheres

Erecting in their wake

An ever/echo-world of smiles and tears

From loving’s give and take

And, looking back from where we stand

They steal our breath a bit

For, one moment may not seem grand

But together they fit

To fill a frame shaped like a heart

Into a stunning work of art

Moments make people grin and groan

While winnowing life’s flow’r

Soul’s promenade of skin and bone

Time’s sweep of sun and show’r

Melding the pigment of today

With pictures of the past

Ah, soon the place where children play

Seems like a shadow, cast

Across a sense of rooms bereft

Of laughter after guests have left

Moments spill-sparkle from a fount

We cannot visualize

Like stars too copious to count

They glint in loved one’s eyes

They melt, like snowflakes on our tongue

They drive the dreams of youth

Then startle us, so briefly young

With time’s incumbent truth

And as we gaze at their return

They blaze trails of still much-to-learn

…like never passing up the chance

To live love’s masterpiece

Like cherishing the charge God grants

In each momentous lease

Aware of the fleet nature of

Gain and loss synchronized

As moments fill a phantom trove

With treasure barely prized

Before it bore bittersweet awe

For love and life’s momentous law

My dear, before Time disappears

Let’s make the most of love

Moments are such momentous spheres

Quite large and small enough

To unfold opportunity

And mold and hold reply

No matter what the case may be

Moments slip subtly by

Erecting an eternal wake

Of love’s momentous give and take

Futile to entertain regret

My dear, new day is born

A maelstrom of momentous ‘yet’

Dazzles the dewy morn

Crowning the mist of moments spent

With dawn’s redeeming spree

And fresh meter of moments lent

To compose history

Let’s strive to honor He who grants

Today’s moment-ous song and dance

© Janet Martin

Futile to entertain regret

My dear, new day is born

A maelstrom of momentous ‘yet’

Dazzles the dewy morn...

Lam.3:22-33

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

26 it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke

while he is young.

28 Let him sit alone in silence,

for the Lord has laid it on him.

29 Let him bury his face in the dust—

there may yet be hope.

30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,

and let him be filled with disgrace.

31 For no one is cast off

by the Lord forever.

32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,

so great is his unfailing love.

33 For he does not willingly bring affliction

or grief to anyone...