Forever Young

 

This cage of wants and hopes and dreams will age, as wear and tear

Will take its toll where aches and pains will make us more aware

Of what has always been this way; time’s play of groan and grin

Will scrawl its telling empathy on/in envelopes of skin

The best and worst of blessed and cursed will keep no form intact

Time’s sleight of hand adept at disclosing matters of fact

Yet cannot touch the much more meaningful and precious part

Where love and thankfulness can keep us ever young at heart

© Janet Martin

Psalm 100:5

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Happy 80th birthday, Mom

 

With the circle still unbroken,

(Mom and Dad and all ten children with our spouses,)

our 80th birthday celebration for dear Mother on Sunday

was precious indeed!

Numbers 6:24-26

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:

25The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

26The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.

The laundry lines you filled would reach up to the moon and back

And we could build skyscrapers with dishes, washed, dried and stacked 

The meals, prepared with thoughtful, loving labor, by God’s grace

Would humble us immensely if gathered into one place

Thank-you mom, for your diligence in ‘training up a child’

While we outgrew dresses and shoes, while days-to-years ran wild

While we would laugh and work and play and learn to humbly pray

To our Father up in Heaven to guide us each day

You taught us how to find joy in earth’s beauty, grand and free

Though busy you were never blind to God-penned poetry

You showed us (not just told us) when there was a task to learn

You took the time to read or pause to watch the seasons turn

You never did complain (or if you did I don’t recall)

A helpmeet for your husband and a mother to us all

With love enough to go around with never one left out

Love was the priceless plenty we never had cause to doubt

What happy days of childhood from heedless innocence slipped

From ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ to prayers without a script

From ‘Goodnight, yes, I’ll leave the hall light on, at least for now

(Unless the talker talked too long and laugher laughed too loud!)

Dear mom, I want to thank you, for too often I forgot

And simply took for granted tasty meals, healthy and hot

And work-worn hands that did not eat the bread of idleness

But tended to duty’s demands with cheerful faithfulness

I’m thankful for God’s love that has allotted eighty years

‘The multitude of sins’ you covered with your prayers and tears

And for the treasured memories that sparkle in a trove

Where surely the greatest of these is our sweet mother’s love

I pray each day for God to bless and keep you in his care

That come what may you sense the power of His presence there

I thank Him for the gift of a mother who read His Word

And let us by example with devotion undeterred

Happy eightieth Birthday, may the year ahead be blessed

With God’s mercies and if He wills, with health and happiness

Happy eightieth birthday, as your numbered days decrease/increase

May they be overflowing with God’s love and joy and peace

© Janet Martin

Psalm 71:18

Now also when I am old and grayheaded,

O God, forsake me not;

until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation,

and thy power to every one that is to come.

Psalm 37:25-26

I once was young and now am old,

yet never have I seen the righteous abandoned

or their children begging for bread.

26They are ever generous and quick to lend,

and their children are a blessing.

Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Never Very Far Apart (A birthday poem)

I couldn't go to bed without posting a birthday post for Melissa!

Happy Birthday, Melissa!

(I sneaked this photo last month when you were home😊💝)

 

Beyond the reach of candle-spangled birthday cake and such

Beyond the years when you were always never far from touch

Beyond the age of goodnight hugs, soft as a teddy bear

But never out of love’s fond reach oft turned into a prayer

Beyond the days when dreams lived in a world with little girls

Oblivious to the momentous stream tick-tock unfurls

Beyond the carefree leap that lands in life, now full of cares

But never, ever, daughter dear, beyond your mother’s prayers

Never beyond the reach of He who leads, guides and protects

Never beyond the grace of He who forgives and forgets

Never beyond the ear of He who hears us when we pray

And never beyond the love of God each and every day

Beyond the reach of hugs, perhaps, but not the wish, my dear

For God to bless you both today and in the coming year

Never beyond love's happiness of 'never far apart'

Because it takes far more than miles to keep you from my heart

Love, mom aka

© Janet Martin

Hoping to celebrate in person (with cake) in a few weeks!

Enjoy New York!

3 John 4

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

A glimpse of 'around home' on Mel's birthday!

(although we often chuckle at Granddaughter- a mini-Mel)

Does this bring back memories?!!

Corn day!

Best friends...

...before little sister whacked big brother

 

And a double rainbow around supper time!

I was tempted to look for the pot of gold!

And a shower of sun-sparkles!

Birthday Wish/Prayer...

Happy 30th Birthday, Emily!

(which means your dad and I are celebrating 3 decades of parenthood!!)

Wishing you...well, read the poem😊💖🙏

Love, Mom

A world of lovely wishes fills my heart for you today

I wish you health and happiness and joy along life’s way

I wish you friends and family to cheer the path you trod

But even more I wish for you a humble faith in God

…because all other wishes without Him seem incomplete

Without greater assurance than this sorry world can mete

So, though I wish you wonders that will make you sing and dance

I wish you, above all, the joy and peace faith in God grants

I wish you courage in the face of opposition’s dare

I wish you lots of laughter, lots of kisses, lots of prayer

I wish for you a crown of wisdom forged from smiles and tears

And faith in God that dearly deepens with the passing years

I wish for you, role models that are trustworthy and true

And love, because love makes worthwhile the smallest tasks we do

But above all I wish what only God’s Word can provide

A Light unto your path to be faith’s infallible Guide

I wish for you awareness of God’s mercy, new each morn

For motherhood’s (servanthood’s) sweet gladness that oft leaves love weary-worn

But, above all the wishes full of favor and delight

I wish for you true faith in God, until faith becomes sight

Today I bind my birthday wishes for you into prayer

That God would bless and keep you in His everlasting care

That through the highs and lows that love and life are sure to mete 

Your faith in Him will be the hope that makes your joy complete 

© Janet Martin

(a wish for all your siblings too for all your lifetime through)

Psalm 16:8-11

I keep my eyes always on the Lord.

With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,

nor will you let your faithful[b] one see decay.

11 You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

OH! the cake?!

Lemon Poppyseed Bundt Cake!

another first time fav!!!

Sacred Spree

Don't you find the older we get the more we realize each birthday is a gift.

Celebrating 56 years of God's goodness today💝

Yesterday my sister Lucy took this photo...

(a little pre-birthday outing with one of our daughters and her children;

her birthday is tomorrow!)

We dropped in to see the sheep someone is boarding at their place...

Oh!!! they are so cute and comical!

The older we get the more we cherish life's simplest pleasures...

(below; a few recent priceless pleasures)

(above) Making Rhubarb Squares😋

As days to years amass

As they pass through our skin

We sense in us an hour glass

Of sparkles growing thin

And though we cannot see

How many glints remain

We know that soon eternity

Will make the hidden plain

When dust to dust returns

And the Soul back to God

When Choice its last consequence earns

Beyond time’s frond of sod

…but for now, we are here

How sacred is this spree

Where life and love endow each year

With opportunity

Where, by the grace of God

We do not need to dread

The highs and lows we yet must trod

In the veiled road ahead

Then, with courage renewed

By mercy’s kind bequest

May humble, holy gratitude

Equip us for the rest/test

This transient tapestry

This season-metered flit

Is but a blip before we see

The other side of it

This bit of groan and grin

This prelude to the whole

This hourglass beneath our skin

Dwindles to Deathless Soul

Where ere one moment spilled

God numbered all the strands

Needed to weave each life He willed

Back to the Giver’s hands

© Janet Martin

Teach us to number our days, 

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

...redeeming the time, because the days are evil

Ephesians 5:16

So Rather Than Lament...

Happy 58th Birthday, Jim!

(I asked him what it looks like where he is celebrating his birthday

so he sent me these sweet shots of upstate New York!)

(for non-regular visitors, he is a truck-driver)

...and since my birthday always follows a week later 

this wry look at getting older is for both of us😅💕😘

Like miles beneath your eighteen wheels the years just peel away

Sometimes it feels as if time steals a month, a week, a day

But it is futile to object or try to rearrange

This thing that nobody as yet has found a way to change

So rather than lament the swift, deft exodus of years

Let’s make the most of what is left before it disappears

…like laughing at ourselves when what once functioned starts to slip

Like dancing like we still have swagger in our one good hip

Like learning how to shuffle when our ‘gid-up’ starts to stall

While wishing for a port-a-potty halfway down the hall

And when one younger wonders at the blunders we engage

We now can laugh and blame our gaffes on good old, good old age

When the forgetter performs better than Remember does

When we become the crowd that prefers Life The Way It Was

When favor and frustration wage a telling tug of war

Futile to try to act like we are only twenty-four

So rather than lament the weathered cover of our youth

Let’s make the most of huff and puff and just admit the truth

Yes, sometimes getting up requires extra grunts and groans

The marathons we run are fetes of grand, mental milestones 

And the face in the mirror, we don’t recognize as ‘me’

Must be a rascal playing tricks on fine-tuned faculty😂

My goodness! Time’s surprises sometimes make me shake my head

The highlight of the day is when its time to go to bed

© Janet Martin

Here's to many more 'surprises' by the grace of God!

How Do I Love Thee, (Once upon Sweet Childhood's Girl or Boy)

(a rather sentimental undoing of a mother's heart

as she contemplates a mother's love for grown children 💝)

Birthdays have a way of doing that...

Happy 24th birthday, Matt!

How do I love thee, once upon sweet childhood’s girl or boy?

I love thee with a brutal grief and with a daring joy

I love thee like a gentle lamb yet with a lion’s roar

It seems like every day I love you like never before

How do I love thee? In a tender tumult borne within

My dear, you cannot guess the world unfurled beneath my skin

Or how a mother holds her babies close in spite of years

How love is like a medley of hugs, tugs, cheers, fears and tears

How do I love thee? With compassion’s firm and fierce regard

Because I know though love is sweet, love is grueling and hard

A holy weathering that cannot be estranged by miles

A prayer-worn tethering through sorrow-storms and sunshine-smiles

How do I love thee? like a dancer still learning the steps

A hold and letting go that Season-change cannot eclipse

With sympathy and hope and honor all rolled into one

I love thee like only a mother loves daughter or son

How do I love thee? with oft stumble-humbled gratitude

With by-the-grace-of-God whose kindness keeps courage renewed

With error-riddled aftermath and laughter’s grand release

With awe, while God is teaching me what makes a masterpiece 

From mom aka

© Janet Martin

Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

This Is Not Role-play (prince and princess-training)

Grand-daughter (little princess) turns three today!

Her wish; a princess party! 

So on Sunday mommy, aunties and gramma enjoyed some princess role-play

(quite unlike the training of these little charges)

Let’s be gently kind and patient; let’s be diligent in prayer

For princes and princesses in training need our utmost care

Seems too soon the tender duel between right and wrong begins

Innocence is like a precious jewel; let’s guard it with angel-wings

This is not role-play; this higher calling than most calling is

Prince and princesses require constant correction and kiss

This is no small undertaking; title Mom and Dad imparts

This is Wisdom-in-the-making melting its way deep in hearts

Preconception under fire, fatigue-warped, sweet, would-be joy

Duty dominates desire, all for darling girl and boy

My, oh my, so much explaining; wisdom is a hard-earned crown

While Prince and Princess In Training strain at chains of featherdown

Let’s ask God to guide and bless us; lest we lay a stumbling block

Lest we trip prince and princesses at the mercy of the clock

Let’s love spills and stains and messes; what a gift each moment is

With prince and princesses in a sacred metamorphosis

© Janet Martin

Her sheer delight at her first glimpse of the eagerly anticipated birthday cake

made me wonder if perhaps this is how our faces

will look when at last princes and princesses in training will behold 

the eagerly-anticipated Day/King!👑

a few more fond-moments memories...

Prince/Brother, who received a random-patches 'quilt/comforter' for his birthday 

made by great-gramma (my mom)

 was just as excited as Princess when she received hers

 because they were hoping she would get one too!

Train up a child in the way he should go,
[a]And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Prov.22:6

Happy 21st Birthday Victoria

I did not yet, when First Gaze met

Thy crinkled brow and downy head

As Greeting’s tender tears were shed

I did not yet quite comprehend

How joy that starts as Little Girls

While Time its silver baton twirls

Leaves in the wake of frocks and curls

So swift, love's sweetest gift; a Friend

love, Mom

aka

© Janet Martin

Happy 21st Birthday, Victoria!

Your gentle and kind disposition is such a sweet blessing!

You make our home a happier, 'fuller' place! 😅

God bless and guide you in the year ahead💝💖🙏

You are a girl of many interests, hobbies and talents/gifts!

Keep trying new things and give the glory to the Giver

of every good and perfect gift!

Besides being an awesome Auntie, sister and daughter,

a student and Hardware Store employee you are

An Artist...

Avid reader, writer, journal-er, historian,

cinema and music lover

and vintage cool-things/dishes collector

Needle-worker/embroiderer 

Green thumb-er-ish...

Baker...

Num.6:24-26

May the LORD bless you

and keep you;

25may the LORD cause His face to shine upon you

and be gracious to you;

26may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you

and give you peace.’