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...

 

Sometimes You Say I've Changed...

Jim and I are approaching our birthdays-season,

kindling tender reflection.

Jim is entering a new decade on Saturday💓🙏

Once upon a time our parents were parents of little children,

then, they became parents of adult children,

Then they became parents of adult children with little children

Now they are parents of adult children with adult children 

who are raising the next generation of little children...

and so it goes.

Nothing and no one stays the same for long!

Best to embrace the place/grace we are in,

for where one season is,

another is waiting to be

as long as life remains!

I am completely content in the season I am in,

not because everything is perfect but because

there are enough joys to balance the heartaches.

Thank-you, Lord!

Spending time with our children

and grandchildren is one of 

life's blessed joys, in the season Jim and I are in.

I love how helping to plant potatoes made Grand-kiddos

 feel happy, important and valued...

(the 'taking turns' rule kept it lively, 

with always someone trying to sneak in two 'turns' in a row 😂)

We had eight rows planted in next to no time at all!

Good times 💖

And great opportunity to live out this passage:

 Deut. 6:5-9

And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart

 and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.

  7And you shall teach them diligently to your children (or grandchildren)

and speak of them when you sit at home 

and when you walk along the road, (or work in the garden)

when you lie down and when you get up. 

8Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

  9Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.

***

I love how the soft soil beneath their bare feet made them giddy with delight

I love how they still all love gramma's lap 💝 

I love when they can have some one on one grandpa time

 (while gramma cleans up supper dishes)

I love having  special reasons to bake...

 

Sometimes you say I’ve changed, and in a sense, I guess it’s true

Time changes things and I suppose it changes people too

Because perspective, with experience is apt to shift

The older that we grow the more we see life as a gift

The older that we grow the more we care about today

Because we’ve come to know how swift each day-gift slips away

To the permanent residence where centuries amass

Where everything that comes along is just as bound to pass

Where circumstance has always dealt both life’s better and worst

Where stepping stones to wisdom often felt like failure first

Where what we learned has earned a gentler, beholden regard

Because the way to learning it, was often slow and hard

Honing what we admire and desire and respect

And opening our eyes to joys we no longer neglect

As we begin to see without a shadow of a doubt

The certainties that younger people seldom think about

Where threescore year and ten or four was for far older crones

Before we looked time in the mirror and felt it in our bones

Admitting with aha, that time’s dexterous sleight of hand

Is more adept than any trick vain mortal can command

Sometimes you say I’ve changed; far sadder to remain untaught

After a lifetime leased to learn to love the way we ought

After day after day of grace, by mercy’s Hand arranged

Forbid the best that we can boast is that we never changed

© Janet Martin

Ps.90:12

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

How Oft-Soft a Sense of Joy-filled Grief...

...or, is it grief-filled joy?? 

(below, a week ago)

"If the tulips never died

the season for irises and peonies,

columbine and corn flowers,

 would never be born"

was my consolation during

 this morning's flower-garden stroll...

How oft/soft the haste of moments stirs

A bittersweet-ness as it blurs

The very present with the past

Ephemeral, yet iron-cast

How oft a long-awaited day

Of balmy breeze and sunbeam-play

Unfolds its bloom upon a stem

That cannot keep its diadem

…where soon echoes and petals meld

To grace the place where death is held

While overhead life thunders by

Beneath a rising, falling sky

How oft delight is caught off-guard

Where children dash across the yard

Heedless of currents that commence

To bear them from sweet innocence

…where soon they humble love's reply

With gaze that meets gaze, eye to eye

And we begin to revere more

The Hand that draws ajar dawn’s door

And we begin to slow our pace

To drain each precious drop of grace

From breakers as they heave and swell 

To wash dusk's shorelines with farewell

How oft we run with outstretched arms

But cannot hold for long, life’s charms

As love, ever a student, gapes

With groping awe, at spent landscapes

How oft we, like our silenced kin

When in the prime of groan and grin

Begin to sense a glove-like sky  

Taming/claiming an ocean of reply 

How oft then, time's momentum wakes

A bittersweet climax that breaks

Like foaming tides across a shore

Where lust for love and life implore

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3: 1-2

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

 A time [a]to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;...

I Wanna Live...

A Funny Business, This

 Today's Poem-a-day challenge from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer' Digest

'For today's prompt, write a funny poem.

Keep in mind that funny isn't always "ha-ha" funny.

For instance, your poem could include a funny smell

or talk about a funny (or weird) person or situation.

And if you've ever hit your funny bone,

that pain is not making anyone laugh.

So write a funny poem, whether it's for a laugh or not.'

The other evening it was man (woman) against nature

as the lawn rollers showed up before I was quite finished raking

up pine cones etc.! Nature won and woman got drenched

but lawn is raked and rolled! Happy dance!

There is something exhilarating about racing against a storm!

Akin to the exhilaration of being surprised by a kind of joy

we can only discover as we grow older!

The kind of joy only humble gratitude grants!

Gratitude for life's simple things.

Like...

Sunsets...(an hour after the storm)

Supper...

and so much more!

A funny business this;

The older that we get

The more we find joy in what is;

This, not forgotten yet 😂

A funny business this;

The sense that humour grants

Like nicknaming Father Time's kiss

Reliable Romance

Let's laugh; be young at heart

Let's refuse to bemoan

The canvas that showcases art

That rankles/wrinkles skin and bone

Let's not waste happiness

In worry or regret

For every day leaves one day less

Of reasons to forget  😶

Yes, there are pains and aches

Social life turns into 

Gatherings at funerals and wakes

As death collects its due

Honing humble surprise

A funny business this;

The best of life cut down to size

Is Gratitude's sweet bliss

© Janet Martin

Ps.90:12

Teach us to number our days, 

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.