With Every Beaming Break of Day

'I believe it is very important for people to appreciate each other'

 -my Dad's thoughtful reply

to my 'I appreciate you more the older I grow' 🙏💓

As break of a new day dazzles creation

 I am so thankful for the gift of fresh opportunity

to forget past failures and regrets and press on...

Pressing on toward the Goal...

Phil.3:12-14

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,

but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

14I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

Behold love, gold and silvered lined

Transcends the bars of yester-rue

With goodness and mercy, brand-new...

With every beaming break of day

For all that Bygone holds at bay

Of opportunity declined

Behold love, gold and silvered lined

Transcends the bars of yester-rue

With goodness and mercy, brand-new

With every gleaming gift of grace

In spite of what none can erase

God, rich in mercy meets us where

We all have darling, equal share

To take this day He made to fit

Faith’s freedom to be glad in it

With every teeming morning-tide

Rife with renewed mercies untried

To cheer the common ground, we trod

Of moments leading back to God

He overflows the part we see

With virgin opportunity

….to love Him and each other more

And to be truly thankful for

His favours, as He bids us trust

Goodness that baffles mortal dust

And kindly cheers us on our way

With every beaming break of day

With every beaming break of day

Oh, may we never cease to pray

For many sorrowing and sick

For courage, as we face the thick

Of unknowns waiting to unfold

Linings of gray, silver and gold 

Janet Martin

I am SO thankful I didn't know yesterday morning

that love would challenge me (in the form of a girl

who used to be in my childcare) to ple-e-e-eae hold her pet...RAT!!! 

'He's so cute and he doesn't scratch or bite' 😭

I was NOT as calm as the photos may seem to suggest!!! 

P.S. I agreed to do it only after they agreed to take a picture

as living proof that I did indeed

HOLD A RAT!!! 😆

Morning Hymn

Lyrics: 1. O, how lovely is the morning, when it is begun with God; Joy and thanks our hearts adorning, as behooves a child of God, Waking after night so fair in the Maker’s gentle care, Rising without grief or sorrow to a new and joyful morrow. 2. Let our eyes be raised to heaven where the sun is shining bright, And on hill and dale and meadow is dispensing life and light; But far more than sun in space beams the Saviour’s kindly face; Truth and kindness, peaceful nearness shine out in eternal clearness. 3. Even as the springtime flowers grow beneath the sun’s warm rays, So the Lord by His own powers makes us garlands for His praise; He invites most lovingly: Little children, come to Me! All should truly know Him ever, call Him Brother, Lord, and Saviour! 4. This day also He will guide us, in our work His help provide, And on wisdom’s ways He’ll lead us, standing ever by our side, That on this whole blessed day no mishap can come our way; And that under His rich blessing night will find us sweetly resting. 5. Through His grace made sweet and easy, we’ll His teachings understand, When he on the path of duty gently leads us by the hand. O, how blest the child that may in His grace begin the day, Whose desire and wish is wholly by His love to be made holy. ​ 6. Come then, Lord of life eternal, step into our midst, we pray; Help that we may not be merely hearers of Thy Word today. To our teacher, O, be near; bless the children gathered here; May we thrive in fullest measure, and Thy heart in us find pleasure!

A Masterpiece of Reverence (in the making)

 

Romans 12:11

Do not let your zeal subside;

keep your spiritual fervor,

serving the Lord.

Ephesians 6:7

Serve with good will,

as to the Lord and not to men,

1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,

do it all to the glory of God.

Psalm 100:2

Serve the LORD with gladness;

come into His presence with joyful songs.

1 Samuel 12:24

Above all, fear the LORD

and serve Him faithfully with all your heart;

consider what great things He has done for you.

💝💝💝

Dear poet-(whether-we-know-it-or-not!)

Here's to Fresh Fervour/Favour for Today's Poem-possibilities!

A little glimpse at yesterday's ballad 💗

Today, like a fresh page is laid beneath each poet’s pen
Where this new day the Lord has made glistens with grace again
For we, apt to forget the bent of breath, cut down to size
Composing, as Today is spent, a poem of replies
Intangible and permanent, moment-ink spills and dries

‘Oh God, have mercy on us all’ as lyrics rush reply
Blotting fresh pages as they fall, with love oft run awry
As mortal clashes with Sublime; with grace we cannot daunt
While give and take’s rhythm and rhyme, perplexes wishful want
We loot inkwells as old as Time, supplied with virgin font

‘Thy word is a lamp to our ‘pen’, a light unto our ‘page’
Thy Word is truth; foolproof, amen. Faithful from age to age
Then, with this day Thy goodness grants, may we, though sadly-flawed
Recognize Dried Ink's permanence; then seek to write, love-awed
A Masterpiece of Reverence to Thee, most gracious God

© Janet Martin

I Peter 3:8-12

Finally, all of you be of one mind,

having compassion for one another;

love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be [b]courteous;

9not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling,

but on the contrary blessing,

knowing that you were called to this,

 that you may inherit a blessing.

10For “He who would love life

And see good days,

Let him [c]refrain his tongue from evil,

And his lips from speaking deceit.

11Let him turn away from evil and do good;

Let him seek peace and pursue it.

12For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

And His ears are open to their prayers;

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Wondrous Worldwide Window

'Each day we find ourselves asking the Lord what he has for that day. 

How can we serve and love those God puts in our path today...

'excerpt from a letter from a family on a mission field 

quite literally on the other side of the world! 

and a question we hopefully pray each morning 

before we face our own mission field on this side of the world!

This past week my heart burst with bittersweet bliss

in the company of many kiddos...

esp. a visit from a few who used to be in my childcare!

I love all of the children who spent time in my childcare a little like my own,

and in a way they will always be 'my other children'

and sometimes I deeply mourn needing to scale back

my childcare hours, then remember

'to everything there is a season'!

And every new season and day is laden with fresh opportunity

to honour and cherish each God-granted moment!

Behold, from shore to shore

A prize for all to claim

A catalyst of unplumbed score

For young and old the same

It opens to the world

The moment we awake

Vistas of Potential unfurled

In every breath we take

It gleams upon yon slope

With heaven-kindled sheen

It redeems that which staggered hope

Where flagging zeal had been

...and recharges the part

That yester-cares wore thin

It overflows the thorn-pricked heart

With roses once again  

 

It glistens with God's love

And mercy's fealty 

Morn's wondrous worldwide window of

Fresh Opportunity

Fresh Opportunity

What better can we ask

It cheers us in what waits to be

And fits us for its task

© Janet Martin

Hear, oh LORD, and

have mercy upon me.

LORD, be Thou my helper

Ps.30:10

Immortality in the Making

'Stop it!' I scolded myself, as I began again, 

to inwardly lament the haste of summer.

'Rather, focus on the vault where Time's timeless treasure accumulates

from the riches of Today's opportunities!!'

This is the day the Lord has made;

we will rejoice and be glad in it

Ps.118;24

Imagine if I/we truly, utterly lived/loved in light of the Giver/Maker each day!

As soon as something is given, it becomes a gift!

so then, each day is a gift;

a gift we shape into life's legacy!

How suddenly sacred today has become!

It's rainy.

A good day for errands and indoor chores!

The way we live/love in life will be the way we live/love in death

The character of you and me survives our final breath

The passion of pursuits when all is said and done, produce

The ration of the fruits that God will weigh without excuse

Lord, ere this day begins to drain into eternity

Remind us of what will remain beyond the part we see

How fleet the seat we fill on Time’s four-season-carousel

How surely each coveted thrill will fall prey to farewell

Like paintings in a gallery, love hangs its works of art

Like pieces of a legacy, like treasure of the heart

Lord, ere we wake beyond this world, impress on us today

The proof of love’s witness unfurled through whose law we obey

Where the heart is, there love’s collected treasure too will boast

(Either on earth or up above) of who we love the most

This is the day the Lord bestows, to live with gifted breath

That which transcends the curtain close, immortal then, in death

Lord, ere it is too late to live/love the way we wish we had

'This is the day that You have made to rejoice and be glad'

© Janet Martin

For where your treasure is, 

there your heart will be also.

Matt.6:21

While Opportunity Affords...

whether its a hug,

flowers,

a text,

a thank-you,

a smile,

we'll take it,

right, moms?

(and dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, spouses, etc.)

any day of the week

any time of the year💝

and, while we have the opportunity

in like measure let's give to our moms

(and dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, spouses, etc.)

what we appreciate receiving...

tokens of love

Happy 26th birthday, Matt

(with celebrations better late than never)

Waiting for Uncle Matt to say....

OKAY! Blow!!!

Happy Birthday to you

Little Big Boy is two!

(whenever Little Big Boy's  mommy asked what kind of birthday cake he would like

his reply was quick and to the point, 'Candy!!' 😅😂💖

In the past week we've celebrated a few birthdays 

and a few mothers...

Each celebration's joy over-shadowed with the awareness

of a grief-stricken family in our neighborhood

who recently lost 'mother' without warning

on their way home from a day spent together.

These things should serve as sacred reminders

to love while opportunity affords...

(yes, every 'howling' bit of it, some with laughter, some with tears 😅)

in tot's defense, he just got pulled from playing golf with a set he just received for his birthday

Here's to the beginning of a lifetime of 'looking for the ball!'

While opportunity affords occasion to love as we ought

To test the reasoning that lords over empires of want-prone thought

While we are able to partake of moments shaping What Has Been

While love allots hope and heartache and all its tender points between

While give-and-take are running rife

Let's make the most of love and life 

While celebrating motherhood and everyone that makes Her thus

While learning to love as we should amidst the humanness of 'us' 

While weathering (but by God's grace) the rise and fall of highs and lows

While ever-approaching the place we all will face; life's curtain-close

While have-and-hold unfolds its lease

Let's cherish every masterpiece 

While laughter spills lyrical thrills and we embrace the gift of 'touch' 

While we encounter clash of wills because human nature is such

While years estrange each brief What Is, while leaving so much still to teach  

While we shoulder imperfect bliss before it slips beyond our reach

Let's taste simple pleasures with love

While God refills Time's treasure-trove 

While mercy meets us where we are and grants fresh opportunity 

While we are never very far from fond farewells waiting to be

While growing older with each breath that draws closer dust-and-ash dues 

Let's live today's prelude to death as if love has no time to lose 

Before its sorrowing tears pour

Let's love now, like never before    

Let's evaluate moment-art

then take each gift of love to heart

Janet~

...and last but not least, our master chef!

Yesterday morning the service was opened with one of my favorite Psalms-16...

Preserve[a] me, O God, for in You I put my trust.

2 O my soul, you have said to the Lord,

“You are my Lord,

My goodness is nothing apart from You.”

3 As for the saints who are on the earth,

“They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”

4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god;

Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer,

Nor take up their names on my lips.

5 O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;

You [b]maintain my lot.

6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;

Yes, I have a good inheritance.

7 I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;

My [c]heart also instructs me in the night seasons.

8 I have set the Lord always before me;

Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;

My flesh also will [d]rest in hope.

10 For You will not leave my soul in [e]Sheol,

Nor will You allow Your Holy One to [f]see corruption.

11 You will show me the path of life;

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

For Today's Roses (still taking shape)

Some days life is a lovely maze of roses and butterflies.

And some days are more like thorn pricks and bee stings.

No matter what kind of day we are having,

only we are responsible for how we reply...

(Yes! This sunny stretch is turning my thoughts gardenward😀💖)

Wishing you a rose-giddy weekend!

Dawn unfolds like a butterfly alighting on earth’s supine pose

Once more courage and faith ally, to try the bud that holds the rose

Where, dust of trust pulses with dreams and wholesome opportunity

Where, though circumstance sets the scene, reply is up to you and me

Where we are always young enough to do the good we ought, to pray

To take and make the most of love before life’s flower falls away

And speak the kind and gentle word and live to give rather than get

And keep our focus undeterred, on Due Season not rendered yet

Then, not grow weary in the good we ought to do, ere reaping starts

And, when love is misunderstood, to answer with forgiving hearts

Then we will never lack for joy, but always find fresh ways to gape

At buds beginning to deploy today’s roses still taking shape

© Janet Martin

Gal.6:9

And let us not grow weary while doing good,

 for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Yesterday was pleasant on the southside deck...

Today temps have plummeted to more seasonal settings

More than It (December Dawn) Seems...

This morning kicked off its tick-tock shaped sun-kissed socks and shoes

before I was able to complete the poem 

that burst into wanting-to-be shortly after waking...

The beauty of meditation 

and the duty of obligation

 always com/posing stiff competition!

Sometimes a poem culminates best 

not pressed/suppressed by sheer determination

but by releasing its fragments until they return

in whispers begging to be penned.

So it was today...

I began dipping chocolate bars and maybe because my

fingertips were chocolatey and my mind at ease

lines teased and flickered,  begging me to wash my hands

and capture them before they waft irretrievably away 😂🙏

On Saturday's post I forgot to flip over the recipe card 

for homemade Chocolate Bars, to show dipping instructions.

I am sharing the dipping instructions instead,  from Jim's (husbands') aunt.

(who makes perfect chocolate bars every Christmas)

Melt your preferred variety of chocolate (I used semi-sweet blocks)

over LOW heat. 

(put water in a pot and set another pot on top and let  the chocolate melt at 

around 3 or 4 temperature on the burner.)

(add a bit of shortening or Paro-wax for glossier finish.)

Dip and cool!

This morning showcased a most welcome sunrise after a stretch of unsunny dawns!

Dawn seems to wear a prayer-like solemnity where new mercies spill

As heavens pale and lift the veil that yester-dusk lowered until

We couldn’t see December’s close-cropped lea, the dark and leafless copse

Etched in stark magnificence against brilliant, westerly backdrops

That dimmed and disappeared; earth’s tiered sweeps shrouded by a sea

That drew away Today laden with ample opportunity

Dawn seems to sing! Every morning the old is reborn and made new

As mercy grants rekindled chance to learn to love as we ought to

Humbly aware of He who cares and helps us bear our shares of Must

Before we pass through that last door of Soul-to-God and dust to dust

And thus, because life is precious and Time a Very Fleeting Flow’r

Dawn seems to wake an urgent ache to make the most of every hour

….each moment rife with unlived life becoming lived; the untouched, touched

And often we forget what we beget as dawn is crudely crushed

By hands and feet; demands compete and how we meet them will become

Without disguise, the ink that dries in a Book tabling each day’s sum

While ticking clocks keep kicking off the shoes and socks at dawn reborn

And sometimes we are prone to see nothing at all but 'morn-to-morn'

…and often dawn seems here and gone without a second thought or prayer

A gift from God we barely nod at as it drifts, not to thin air

But to a page, where age to age is recording daily reply

Its telling proof spelling the truth that will be futile to deny

Then, pray that want may be subdued by gratitude as mercy streams

Renewed; where dawn is like a glimpse of Heaven bursting at its seams

© Janet Martin

And, let we forget!!!

As true now as in the days of Jeremiah's lament...

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

Lam.3:22-24

O Morning Star

A Royal Opportunity

 

(photo in the public domain)

A few comments from King Charles III's proclamation speeches;

‘I shall strive to follow the inspiring example that has been set…’

‘Even as we grieve, we give thanks for her life well lived’

We have a royal opportunity to have something in common with Queen Elizabeth;

Through faith in Jesus Christ, to set an inspiring example

 and to leave behind a life well lived

to honour the King of kings and Lord of lords

by following the example He set!

 The family of believers in Jesus,

 is the greatest royal family of all!

Everyone is welcome🙏

John 3:16-17 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, 

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, 

but to save the world through him.

***

Far more than merely moments spring from time’s volatile fount

Where life runs rife with choices for which we will give account

As step by step and day by day we all advance toward

Last Breath, when this world slips away and we will meet the Lord

What earnest heed we ought to give to what we do and say

Between the past and future, we live always in Today

Where no one knows how near or far its final grant will be

Or when the person that we are becomes A Memory

The common ground of opportunity is made of dirt

A momentous velocity of happiness and hurt

Where we all share the common need, however rich or poor

Of faith in Jesus Christ; He alone keeps the soul secure

This is the day the Lord has made; oh, will it be our last?

Not all will see its shadow laid to rest in ages past

Lord, help us live as if today could be the steppingstone

To that which never fades away, when life on earth is done

© Janet Martin

Col.1:9-13

For this reason, since the day we heard about you,

 we have not stopped praying for you 

and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will 

in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 

10so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord

 and may please Him in every way: 

bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

  11being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might 

so that you may have full endurance and patience, and joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, 

who has qualified youc to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

13He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness 

and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, 

14in whom we have redemption,

d the forgiveness of sins.

What a Day That Will Be...

Once More Daybreak...

Daybreak; what a gift!

Let your light so shine before men, 

that they may see your good works,

 and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

Matt.5:16

Once more daybreak’s blush-gold glory draws our eyes to prize hope’s feast

Mercy’s Magnum Opus unfolds like a flower on the east

Beckoning the humble pilgrim pressing toward Heaven’s goal

To reckon redemption’s risen, reigning Savior of the soul

To give thanks and awestruck honor, proving praise as we obey

He who sets His law and order in the bedrock of Today

As dawn’s light flows through the darkness and yon boundless fathoms brim

Pray, the Light of loving kindness will draw all glory to Him

Pray for rekindled awareness of faith’s living sacrifice

Pray for a conscious preparedness for worship’s ultimate price

Pray however meek and lowly our service seems to be

That we offer it with holy, sincere generosity

Once more daybreak hoists the emblem of God’s merciful regard

Sets upon the earth and heavens a semblance of love’s postcard

As compassion stays the legions that wait all around His Throne

As He looks upon the millions He is waiting to atone

Once more daybreak peals with promise; God is gracious to forgive

Death, oh, death is not victorious if we look on Him and live

Come, oh sinner, poor and needy, will you still refuse to pray

Daring to meet God unready in Death’s ‘no more break of day’

© Janet Martin

Come, Ye Sinner, Poor and Needy