Under The Umbrella of God's Care

Today's poem was partly inspired by my morning prayer as I asked God to please spread

His care like an umbrella over me and the kiddos that others entrust to my care...

The verge of what will be soon merges with all that has been

Whether valleys shadowed with death or pleasant pastures green...

While the kiddos play or 'help'...

... I sometimes find things to putter about with...

Pinch me! I feel like I just bedded down the gardens,

and though this may be a bit premature, (because yes,

 I do see the snowflakes in next week's forecast)

I just can't resist the urge to merge with garden-dirt a bit

(because the neighbors got a dog, we sorta did too😀)

(Yesterday morning while I was working in the kitchen I heard a clatter in the laundry room.

apparently the back door did not latch properly

after I hung out the laundry and this dog made himself at home without knocking😂

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, 

and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. 

This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

Eccles.2:24

Ah, here we are, not very far from learning’s next affair

But always underneath the kind umbrella of God’s care

Because showers of blessing come in every shape and size

Some welcomed with wide open arms, some hard to recognize

We never know what waits to show its face with smile or tear

But oh, the more we trust, the less each of us has to fear

God, we are prone to groan beneath the weight of ‘what might be’

Help us to learn to lean on you with faith’s humility

The gold of beaming rampart unfolds like a work of art

From the grail of God’s mercy to the cup of human heart

Where, here we are, not very far from Love's unfailing Hand

All that we need to do is reach and He will help us stand

The verge of what will be soon merges with all that has been

Whether valleys shadowed with death or pleasant pastures green

We kick the dust of want and must; it rises but to fall

God's grace spreads like an umbrella over one and all

© Janet Martin

The gold of gleaming rampart 

unfolds like a work of art...

The Painful Art of Learning...How to Trust

Here's to this New Year's Workouts!

While body-building exercises can be painful and teeth-gritting

I've discovered trust-honing is a far more painful

and patience-building process;

it's heart-gripping exercises often

performed with the invisible weight of waiting,

it's endurance test challenging kindness, generosity and humility.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy 

and peace as you trust in him, 

so that you may overflow with hope 

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Rom.15:13

I chose the above verse for this year's Christmas Card

because it seems esp. meaningful/fitting right now,

and I still forget its attitude/Fortitude, far too easily! 

(maybe because deep down I'm trying to

handle 'trust' too much on my own

and not by the power of the Holy Spirit)

Prayer for today:

Oh God, help us, through you, to trust You

and not get caught up in the noise of arguments

that accomplish nothing good for your purpose,

In Jesus' Name

Amen

This poem is a bit of heart-fray...

This tattered, frayed, shattered, 

Disappointment-smattered 

Shorn, weary-worn, forlorn, 

Sorrow-torn Hope 

This lot, often caught in 

A tangle of angles 

And wrangles; Its ‘paint’ 

Well-acquainted with ‘nope’ 

This mixety-maxety 

No quick-fix calamity 

Pricking, swift-kicking, 

Sticking-points galore 

This rough, tough kerfuffle 

With stuff, love and trouble 

Is enough to ruffle 

Faith’s feathers, for sure 

This stretched-to-the -limit 

Where minute by minute 

Its gamut is fresh-stymied 

With giants of dust 

This hunger-prone, bent-to-hone

Wild burning yearning 

Is but the heart learning 

The art of true trust 

© Janet Martin 

One of my go-to pick-me-upper songs

Jesus, Only Jesus

Lessons Easier Said than Done

 

This is nothing new; the uncertainty of the times we are in!

God bless you as we learn together

to trust and lean more completely on Him!

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

2 Cor.6:1-2

As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.

 For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”[a]

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, 

now is the day of salvation.

Learning to lean longer, stronger through meeker relinquishment 

Learning to let weakness be the catalyst to Super-strength 

Learning to be less of me so that there can be more of You 

Are all lessons that are so much easier to say than do 

Learning to listen rather than pour out my heart’s misery 

Learning to be still and know that you are Graced Sufficiency 

Learning to let go while holding on to You, unfailing One 

Are lessons far easier said than wholly, holy, humbly done 

Learning to trust without knowing what lies near or far ahead 

Learning to rest in the promises You gave to us instead 

Learning to live each day like it could be life’s severing tie 

Are lessons far easier to say than do, but we should try 

© Janet Martin

For All This-A for Effort, Please?

Yesterday This chair 

held a replay of This

because already Little Boy is struggling with this law in all of us...

 For I do not do the good I want to do, 

but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 

Romans 7:19

Read the glorious analysis to the quandary here; 

Romans 7 & 

Romans 8

For all the failures I could count 

In Learning’s stumble-humbled chase 

In the end all seems to amount 

To ‘try again, all by God’s grace’ 

For all the 'bumble-pie' life serves 

Without waiting for ‘seconds please?’ 

I should stagger beneath cruel curves 

If it packed, not lacked calories 

For all the things I thought I knew 

Until life puts it to the test 

Becomes The Thing that draws me to 

My knees with pleas of meek request 

For all the gritty grunts and groans 

That could forge millstones from my tears 

But mercy turns to stepping-stones 

And keeps me from drowning in fears 

For all that at first glance would seem 

To be failure’s shining success 

I pray that God would kindly glean 

An A for effort from its mess 

And save me from would-be despair 

Not by some credit proudly earned 

But by His whisper in my prayer 

For all my spoil, His grace returned 

© Janet Martin 

We All Start Off So Young (in the School of Life)

We all start off so young to learn what time will teach
Youth’s years are like sun-sparkles flung to waves that wash the beach
The crucial length of it is like a balance beam
To test and hone the strength and grit of they who dare to dream

Folly goes hand in hand with those who do not heed
The wiser words of ones who stand upon the fallen seed

 They've seen how swift the sprout becomes a full grown tree
How dangerous shadows of doubt without counsel can be

Time is Teacher to all no matter what our age
Eons of seasoned rise and fall hinge to unblemished page
The One who supplies Need does not leave us alone
But grants the courage to proceed into the Great Unknown

Where we all start off young but soon begin to lose
The innocence of childish tongue as time fulfills its dues
And greenness starts to earn through blunder and faux pas
Gold wisdom so painful to learn but worth its humble awe

Ah, fear would be a noose without faith to defend
Nobody can remain footloose and fancy-free, my friend
Only a fool is crass and tries to dodge Love’s rod
Where we are all part of a class that will answer to God

Then, though lessons are long and arduous to learn
It is the fight that makes us strong and authors good return
Therefore, do not despair; the School-Master is kind
Remember, we all started where we left our youth behind


© Janet Martin

 See then that you walk ^[a]circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,

  ¹⁶ redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Eph.5:15-16

 

On Learning To Learn...

Life is full of bumps, dints, scraps and scrapes...

that take the shape of lessons to learn

😟

No quick-just-fix-it buttons
When what is done is done
No technique to turn backward
Moments beneath the sun

Only onward and forward
We learn most from mistakes
Life-lessons are important
In spite of its headaches

The best that we can muster
From things we would undo
Is to forgive each other
And learn its lesson too


© Janet Martin

Always Someone...

 ...always someone small who steals the breath of someone tall(-ish)😉

Always someone following somebody in the lead

Always someone harvesting the fruit of fallen seed

Always someone learning what somebody else learned too

Always someone earning what becomes appointed due

Always someone loving while another someone hates

Always someone hurting while another celebrates

Always someone working while a freeloader sits back

Always someone doing more to make up for the slack

Always someone dying and somebody being born

Always some who witness dusk while others greet the morn

Always some who make the best of what seems like the worst

Always someone second because someone else is first

Always someone needing what another has much of

Always someone seeing with opposing points of love

Always someone seeking what another one has found

Always everybody treading Mercy’s holy ground

© Janet Martin

Inexorable Entitlements...

The bitter and the sweet compete; oh, why must it be so

To hold is to suffer love’s precious pangs of letting go

Today is always placed over echoes and weathered treads

And joy is always interlaced with sorrow’s tender threads

To recognize and prize the highs we must undergo lows

And brace ourselves, where fond goodbyes follow happy hellos

The good against the ill is always finely juxtaposed

And oft night’s soft silences spill with what day’s noise composed 

The flower is the preface to shower of petals felled

The present is always the place where past and future meld

The flight to getting older soldered to laughter and tears

Regret's gut-wrenching gutters and triumph's capstone of cheers

The loveliness and ugliness of bare matters of fact

Kindles heartache and happiness; both never left intact

Where the longer we live the less it seems we truly know

And all we keep is what we give; oh, why must it be so

© Janet Martin

Of Chapters Closed...

There's no getting away from it: the longer we live the older we get!

 The older that I get the more I appreciate the blessings that never lose their wonder...

like newborn babes

 Baby pictures courtesy of his mommy and photographer, my niece!

Thank-you Brit  😘

(it was SO hard to choose!)

and buds!

The longer that we live the more our hunger is exposed

To ink that spills in wonder but then turns to Chapters Closed

The years that etch their echoes into tears and smiles and such

Once seeming oh so present have grown cold beneath time’s touch

And nothing that we do can draw the carriage of farewell

From whence, but reminds us to live today’s moments full-well

The longer that we live the more we realize this Truth

How short the passage is between wizened warriors and youth

My, my, but moments have a way of turning people old

Crowning the weathered brow with gray that once gleamed smooth and gold

And we begin to cherish more the morn’s momentous splurge  

We’ve learned, it isn’t long before the sea and rivers merge

The longer that we live the more we give a kinder thought

To what once seemed so common-place but we have learned, is not

The silt that we once trampled stirred by younger, lighter feet

The ‘house we built’ remodeled beneath green hope still dream-sweet

And we become The Older Folk we never thought we would

And join the ranks of meeker thanks and love misunderstood

The longer that we live the less we stress about what waits

Because we sense Time’s Server hov'ring to collect our plates

And so we linger longer over morsels that seem plain

A little more aware that they will not be served again

Where the secret to happiness has taught us to forgive

And make the most of what gets less the longer that we live

...where eventide gathers the lusty echoes life composed

And tenders them to dusty volumes filled with Chapters Closed

© Janet Martin