Flower Garden Goodness

Sometimes goodness seems shattered in this broken world of ours

Until we linger in the friendly fellowship of flowers

Sometimes we find it hard to reconcile life's highs and lows

Until we stop to listen to the counsel of a rose

Sometimes with good intent we rush headlong into the day

Without taking a moment to 'behold lilies' and pray

Sometimes, the path of righteousness would be a doleful due

Save for the flower gardens it is bound to draw us to/through...

Some of the greatest sermons that the heart has ever heard

Are preached from petal-pulpits without uttering a word

© Janet Martin

Matt.6:25-34 BSB

25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?f

28And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the Gentiles strive after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first the kingdom of Godg and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.

Crucial Consideration

Earth's annual flower-carousel has begun to twirl...

and, our days are like the flowers...

a brief bloom at best!

1 Peter 1:24

For, “All flesh is like grass, 

and all its glory like the flowers of the field; 

the grass withers and the flowers fall,

Considering that you and I

Are here for such a little bit

It behooves all of us to try

To make the very most of it

To do the very best we can

To honor God with word and deed

To truly love our fellowman

And not to want more than we need

©Janet Martin

Ps.103:15-18

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16For the wind passes over it, and it is [b]gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
17But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
18To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

Time's Wise, Worthwhile and Most Beautiful Redemption

Ephesians 5:15-16

Pay careful attention, then, 

to how you walk,

 not as unwise but as wise,

redeeming the time, 

because the days are evil.

A wet garden stroll this morning

with coffee and camera in hand 

(naturally 😊)

Larkspur 

Sunflower

rain-bent geranium

Daylily

Hosta

Dipladenia

Petunia

Hollyhock

Honeysuckle

Can there be a wiser way

To redeem time’s hours

Than to spend a summer’s day

Communing with flow’rs

Than for half an afternoon

Stop to smell the roses

Awed at petal-poem boon

Only God composes

Than to gaze at Queen Ann’s lace

Studying its stitches

Than to reverently trace

Detail that bewitches

Than be sweetly stunned to find

Myriad masterpieces

Then, be more worship inclined

As wonder increases

Can there be a better way

To relieve love’s duty

Than to pause, a summer’s day

In God-gardened beauty

Can there be a purer laud

Than in bloom bent bow'r

Than to grasp a glimpse of God

Smiling in each flower 

Sh-h-h! Can you hear wisdom woo

Gloriously granted?

To be like a flower too

And bloom where we're planted 

© Janet Martin

July-High or Season of Sweet Summertime

 Some summer/ July 'highs/highlights'...

Freshly-picked supper!

Yesterday's Lunch!

'Where every flower-dear is fair of face...'

'And every shower-dear a gift from God'

Freshly-popped lily!

And Queen Ann decks herself in finest lace

And Daisy dares with ‘loves-me-loves-me-not’

Living’s unrivaled adrenaline rush

Beauty unbridled in sequence sublime

Colorful cadence of hymns, petal-plush

This is the season of Sweet Summertime

Breeze tousles treetops, stirs leafy-green sighs

Porches are perches for popsicle-snacks

Meadows are churches beneath smiling skies

Earthy pews bid worshippers to relax

Arbors are lavished with vine-woven lace

Gardens are ravished with vegetable-fare

Nothing in summer is quite commonplace

Pity the one who has no time to spare

No time to lie with ear pressed to the throb

In nature’s chest; let it soothe creature care

No time to watch butterfly flit and bob

Or to consider the lilies so fair

Come, let us cater to wanderlust’s lure

Weather the verge of the surge of farewell

Savor the flavor of summer, so pure

Tolling a swansong in each flower-bell

Soak in the silver-soft laughter of life

Cherish its brief afternoon of romance

List to the ballad of roses run rife

While Father Time and Mother Nature (slow)dance

No reason needed, dear, just sit a bit

For none can tether Time to mid-July

All one can do is to revel in it

Linger where bronze wheat fields bend with goodbye

And Queen Ann decks herself in finest lace

And Daisy dares with ‘loves-me-loves-me-not’

Where every flower-dear is fair of face

And every shower-dear a gift from God

Crinoline swish of welkin gowns brush by

Heart skips a beat; reciprocates with rhyme

While happiness soars to new July-high

Here in the season of sweet Summertime

© Janet Martin

While happiness soars to new July-high

Here in the season of sweet Summertime

Care's Counterbalance...Creator's Kindness

Let's pray in these times-like-never-before 

where nations are turning from God like never before

that we who believe commit to seeing, hearing, obeying,

relying on and worshipping Him like never before...

Many are the witnesses of faith we may look to for courage, chiefly Jesus!!

Heb.12:1-2

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

 let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,

 and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

 2looking unto Jesus, the [a]author and [b]finisher of our faith,

 who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, 

despising the shame, and has sat down 

at the right hand of the throne of God.

When we delight in the beauty of creation

it is not hard to believe that our Creator God is awesome above all else!!

Isaiah 46:9
Remember the former things of old:

for I am God, and there is none else; 

I am God, and there is none like me,

Sometimes life’s woes could blind us to God’s kindnesses unfurled

To counterbalance creature cares in a care-laden world

He tunes heaven and earth with boons too manifold to count

He woos us to drink deeply from June’s leaf and flower fount

Where once again He clothes the land with garb of seed and bud

In keeping with the covenant, He made after the flood

To manifest His evidence, creation shouts His name

To quench credence to atheism’s cold and calloused claim

He comforts us with colours only His thought can compose

And sweetens Heaven-hunger with reason only He knows

Where each season showcases masterpieces, mercy-lent

Where nothing in this world replaces Goodness, mercy-bent

To well in us, in spite of aches and pangs that sting and press

A worship-bidden, wonder-smitten hymn of happiness

Of reverence and honour to He from Whom blessings pour

To awe and cheer us onward to the joy still set before

...to capture our attention with surprises full of grace

To lavish wounds of learning with fond glimpses of His face 

To never let life blind us to He who is kind and good

Whose invisible qualities are clearly understood

© Janet Martin

Rom.1:20

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—

his eternal power and divine nature—

 have been clearly seen, 

being understood from what has been made, 

so that people are without excuse.

Oh God!!! May I/we never live

 unawed!