Showing posts with label mothers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mothers. Show all posts

Monday, May 15, 2023

Songs of May and Morn


It was a weekend of celebrating...
 Grandson's 1st birthday,
 


mothers/motherhood,


and May/gardening...
(helping grandpa plant potatoes)


Grand-sonny preferred planting potatoes to the tedium of planting peas...
When I handed him a little pail of pea seeds he proceeded to pour them into the
furrow rather than place them one by one,
 until gramma showed them how to space the seeds😅


I can't wait for them to begin witnessing the miracle from seed to fruit!

On this note, off we go on a new week rife with life's wonders and woes!


An orchestra of colour plays a melody reborn
To set both earth and heart ablaze with songs of May and morn
The author of all things ignites from minstrels great and small
A hymn of gladness, and invites us to join, one and all
To praise He who is faithful, absolute and wonderful
And eternally able to do the impossible

A symphony of splendor spills from He who does no wrong
It rolls across valleys and hills like a redemption song
To clothe the field with flowers and the tree with leafy sheen
To transform barren bowers with a thousand shades of green
And to remind the creature, awed at what God's love restores
To trust creation’s Teacher who sustains hope’s reservoirs

An invitation steals the show with holy thundering
A celebration peals ‘hello’ and beckons us to sing
In spite of cares we shoulder and the sorrows of this world
God cheers the awed beholder with His handiwork unfurled
And wakes a purer, meeker praise as melodies reborn
Once more set earth and hearts ablaze with songs of May and morn

© Janet Martin

Sometimes my morning worship/prayer/quiet time 
seems like a bittersweet duel between
groaning grief for what feels like 'impossible' prayers
and dumbfounded joy for His awesome Word and handiwork.
...a duel between sorrowful recognition/reconciliation 
of suffering the consequence of a sinful action
and awe for God's abiding faithfulness, kindness, forgiveness, love and grace

***

Isa.26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.

A few recent devotions from My Utmost for His Highest





Thursday, May 20, 2021

Oh Lord, Please Send an Angel Army (to minister to moms)

 

Sometimes home-sweet-home feels more like a battleground
where soul-diers in training can put up quite a fight
and test the best of any mom's/dad's fortitude!
Dear mother, daddy, do not despair! 
This little charge is worth every hard correction and prayer

Tots depend on mom and dad to do what no one else will;
 train them as they grow!
 It's not easy but it is the most important challenge
you will ever undertake!

 before time tips them out of childhood's 'wheelbarrow'...




Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms (and daddies)
In the thick of a battle with most crucial outcomes
Grant them wisdom and patience as they plant and prune and cull
Without the advantage of an instruction manual

Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms
Theirs is no undertaking of love, soon over-and-done
A mother’s love, a balance of both tough and tender, oh
As they train up a child in the way that they ought to go

Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms
For they grow weary as they discipline daughters and sons
It isn’t easy working for precious Child’s greater good
Lord, send an angel army to minister to motherhood (parenthood)

© Janet Martin

Prov.22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Prov.3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Of Mother's Love

 For all of our moms and mom-figures

Mother's Day Blessing


💝

It’s bottomless, no matter what
Though time weathers its trove
And plays havoc with touch and such
Never a mother’s love

Each child is a piece of her heart
While time spins clocks and wheels
And change insists upon the art
That fills echo-kissed reels

A mother’s love withstands the tug
That draws the child elsewhere
She learns to turn the tender hug
Into far-reaching prayer

From babe’s first cry till final sigh
Her labour-pains abound
To keen love’s bottomless supply
Each mother’s common ground

Where much is beyond her control
In this world’s fickle glove
And decays as time take its toll
Never a mother’s love

From fair-faced youth to age-old years
As seasons are exiled
God pours His love through smiles and tears
Of mother’s love for child

Whether a babe of cherub charms
Or marked by wear and tear
A child cannot outgrow the arms
Of mother’s love and care

Then, while you can, Child, treat her kind
For nothing else compares
No matter what treasures we bind
With mother’s love and prayers

© Janet Martin

Numbers 6:24-26 -
 The Lord bless you and keep you;
 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.



Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Dear Mother of Tot...


Tots require endless hands on involvement. 
This can be really draining on mother-of-tot's energy, wisdom and patience-well!
  Mommy, hang in there!
It's extra-hard right now when you can't get together
 to empathize with a great source of strength and encouragement...other mothers!
Praying God grants you super-strength and patience hour by hour!
 (because I do childcare I get fresh 'reminders' of the tot-stage!
A seriously tiring and challenging stage for mom-of-tot!)
or 'dad of tot' just in case you're Mr. Mom😀 



Dear mother of tot,
Well we know it is not
A small call that you undertake
Where the battles you brave
Are with innocent babes
You love so much your heart could break
But dear little tot,
Though you like it or not
You must learn that no means no
And mother of tot,
Whether you like it or not,
You must teach them that it is so

Dear mother of tot,
What a large charge you’ve got
To train up a child in ‘the Way’
Where wee hearts and hands
With their endless demands
Sometimes drain you of words left to pray
For a ‘dear little tot’
Far too soon they are not
And the window of training will close
So, dear mother of tot
Give the best you have got
It is all you can do and God knows

Dear mother of tot
Do not, I repeat, do not
Keep a list of your fumbles and frowns
But let go at dusk’s door
What will be no more
We all learn through love’s ups and downs
…for dear, dear little tot
This mother you’ve got
Loves you more than the world times ten
And dear mother of tot
By the goodness of God
You will raise morrow’s women and men

© Janet Martin


(According to the passage below we 'older women' have
a pretty big role to play in the encouragement of our dear younger women!)

Titus 2:1-8

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

What You Cannot Know (through no fault of your own)


'You didn’t know me then', I sometimes say to my now grown children
 when we talk about something I used to do before they were born, 
such as drive to work at 4:00 a.m. on slippery wintery roads.
 All they know me as is mom who looks after a family’s practical needs!



 (my sis texted me this afternoon about these pages above
and more but you'll have to buy or borrow the book for the rest)😀
The Shape of a Year by Jean Hersey
I think because we have the same mother and we both have daughters
we relate to certain parts of this book on a very mutual level! 
One of my top ten favs ever!


My dear, you cannot understand (by no fault of your own)
How much your mother’s heart expands to hold children full-grown
Or how the girl she was is still a part of who she is
(no matter what changes because Time keeps its promises)

The heart you cannot fathom until you are old as she
Will always still be learning how to hold while setting free
Twixt yester’s child and today’s woman, man her love is torn
Where thankfulness and longing spar in whispers heaven-borne

Yes, she’s been disappointed at love’s disappointments, oh
At how the future is nothing like she dreamed long ago
As God so rich in mercy grants breath-stealing more or less
And teaches her to look closer at ‘what is happiness’

I did not understand back then (through no fault of my own)
How oft my mother’s heart landed before her Father’s throne
Or how once upon long ago my mother used to be
A barefoot maiden filled with dreams foot-loose and fancy-free

Before the call and cares of life joined love and motherhood
And still through all the joy and strife she knew that it is good
How all we did not understand is what waited to be
Sweet thrills of surprise at age-old, newfound discovery

…she waits for passion to become astonished at time’s way
No one can seize the pendulum that dictates night and day
But as the heart expands to hold what soon is left behind
The girl she was will remind her to be patient and kind


© Janet Martin


Friday, November 1, 2019

Once Upon a Mother's Love...

It's November. Writer's Digest's Poem-a-day prompt begins again!

With a change in pronouns this could be  'dad' or 'parents' poem as well
but because my dear mother turns 77 today, I wrote it for her.
The older she and I get, the more I cherish the person she is
and the more I realize how much I took for granted!)

(my mother, being of a meek and modest nature
might not object to one small pic of her peeking from behind some blooms)

Happy 77th, mom!



Oh, once upon a younger love
Before Time turned the page
That stirs revised collections of
A fond and foreign age
There, from a well of priceless ink
No child can comprehend
The poetry of childhood’s wink
Was unconsciously penned

Oh, once upon our mother’s prime
We spent her best of days
Oblivious to Father Time
And his insistent ways
We out-grew shoes and buttered bread
And learned to do our share
Blind to the sacrificial thread
That wove her loving care

Oh, once upon a simpler day
(We didn’t see it then)
While balancing work, play and pray
We became women, men
And looking back thanks often falls
Beyond the reach of word
Where once upon much greener halls
Childhood’s swift seasons blurred

…as once upon a mother’s love
Her fledglings learned to fly
Up, up, love's brave and tender shove
Propelled us to the sky
While we, intent upon the stars
Did not fathom her part
Until we bore love’s battle-scars
And wore a mother’s heart

© Janet Martin



Yesterday morning was our annual mom's birthday tea with my sisters and sister-in-laws;
ten of us in total and always a special time of food and fellowship
as we reconnect after a busy summer and plan for Christmas etc.
My contribution to the food was 
Oatmeal Raisin Pie

Mix and pour in unbaked 9" crust...
(handful of raisins sprinkled on crust optional)

1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
 3 eggs, beaten
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (and/or nutmeg)
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup corn syrup

Bake approx. 45 min at 350F