How I Love You, Little Tot

How I love you, little tot

Helpful to the point of not

Laden with the best of cares

Trucks, books, dolls and teddy-bears

How I love you, little child

Driving joy and patience wild

My, but you are small and smart

Darling, trusting, pure in heart

How I love you, little one

With each rise and set of sun

You follow with run and play

Every child of Yesterday

How I love you, precious dear

You’ll grow up too soon, I fear

Gracious Lord, please hear my prayers

Hold my hand as I hold theirs

© Janet Martin

Ah, Motherhood

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Hectic happiness swooshed yesterday away 

before I had a chance to do a post! 

It's nice to have a day to reflect on family's imperfect 'Happy', isn't it?!

Words of love whether texted, phoned, told face to face or carded are precious treasures

for mothers to tuck away and pull out on a 'rainy' day!

So thankful for my mom!

Ah, Hardest Best that love allots

Of test mingled with joy

Of learning lessons more than once

As She trains girl and boy

Ah, grandest gift that life can give

In spite of constant cares

As motherhood becomes the sieve

Through which she pours her prayers

Where love like none before or hence

(Save God who authors Good)

Will grant such sacred recompense

As humble motherhood/parenthood

Ah, vessel made of flesh and blood

Yet mighty, by God’s grace

Her form must bear the tearing flood

Of birthing human race

There ending and beginning meld

Where earth and heaven meet

As nothing love-borne is withheld

From tiny hands and feet

God, hold her hands as she holds hands

That pull and pull away

Help her where love’s lifelong demands

Teach and teach her to pray

For motherhood is not a game

No fame highlights its goals

Mother is charged with Heaven’s Claim

She cares for living souls

God, bless this Hardest Best of All

Of bitter-sweetest Good

For there is no other such call

Like that of motherhood

© Janet Martin

Things About Your Mother You Should Know...

PAD Challenge day 9: Time for our second Two for Tuesday of the month!
 Pick one prompt or use both…your choice!

1. Write a love poem. All you need is love.
2. Write an anti-love poem. Or not.

 Her children rise up and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:

Prov.31:28

Dear Son and/or Daughter

from your mother

Your mother will always love you

With heart-strings ironclad

When you hurt she suffers with you

Your triumphs make her glad

From the first time she held you near

From your first newborn cry

Love became life itself, my dear

Bigger than summer's sky

Her love for you gives purpose to

Life’s mundane tasks because

A Love bigger than hers shines through

The little things she does

He helps her through the hardest parts

This Charge God rendered her

Is not for Woman Faint of Heart

When she becomes Mother

For you her dreams and reasons change

For pangs of birth begin

A mother's life-long labor-pains

Hug, hold, let go, scold, grin

Her prayers could fill up an ocean

Your cares become hers too

Hers is a dogged devotion

Unwavering and true

Her teaching becomes her learning

Her learning brings heartaches

So forgive her while she is earning

Her certificate of mistakes

For all she really longs for

In her imperfect best

Is motherhood's highest honor

That you will call her blessed

Then whether mother is thirty-two

Or wizened ninety-five

Love her, for oh, she will love you

As long as she is alive

© Janet Martin

For All Those Things That Never Change...from a mom

'Because' I replied, dissatisfied with the vague answer when asked how Youth spent an evening/well into the night "because 'just hanging out' can cover a multitude of possibilities!"

(I well recall that answer:)

"Oh, so you don't trust us?" was the instant challenge to which 'old mother' replied,

"all my trust in the world won't keep you/th from temptation

and if you are a healthy red-blooded youth, you will be tempted

because THAT is one thing that does not change in spite of everything that does

which is why mothers pray for their sons/daughters...

They have no idea (yet) how many prayers follow, cover and carry...

Compensation comes in measures Youth cannot yet realize

Some things never change in spite of what plain sight just might surmise

Mother has a reason for the seasoned views that she maintains

…she was young like you once too with hunger coursing through her veins

We who seem quite antiquated to the up and coming clan

Wear suspicious second looks because of ways common to man

Where no matter how the tides may turn or what they might estrange

As the years goes by they too will learn how some things never change

She will always worry/pray not just because that’s what moms do

But because she knows the way a foot can twist inside a shoe

And for all the words invented to assuage and dismiss doubt

It is possible to tuck worlds between words that are left out

There will always be temptation (but never without escape)

Best intentions are worth nothing without deeds that give them shape

Idle hands are easy subjects for the devil to employ

Secret guilt is like a lesion that robs life of peace and joy

When your brow, still smooth a satin wears a crown with hints of snow

And the dust that young heels kicked up feels like just a wink ago

In some yonder sudden moment in time’s tender youth forsook

You will understand the reason for your mother’s searching look

 

© Janet Martin

Moms have been praying for ages!

 Are you a praying mother?

The world needs them now more than ever!