Majestic Masterpiece (aka Mercy)

To the locals, no, this was not today!😅😅

The one below is this morning!! 

just as majestic...at second glance!

Gold-dipped daybreaks have been far and few between, the last few months!!

The first photo one of the few from mid-February!

But, whether gold or gray the Giver is the same, who grants each day

What a sound, 

like muffled thunder, 

or a rolling sea

must fill God's ears

as millions of feet touch down 

each morn on the façade of eternity 

Yes, at first glance it appeared to be

'another lackluster dawn'

But a longer look transformed it...

and suddenly I was smitten with

a rekindled desire to taste 

in full its sparkle of moments

far too precious to waste

It rolls from age to age

Unruffled by the years

It sits at front and center stage

As night unveils its piers

To bear the brunt of feet

Where raring highs and lows

Of eternal import compete

Upon its fleeting pose

It gleams with hope’s appeal

And groans with hope’s despair

And laughs with hope’s replenished zeal

As worry yields to prayer

And hunger to the Must

That none can long ignore

But hounds Soul’s vestibule of dust

With wolves that stalk death’s door

It gleams with dreams reborn

From shards that love will purge

It rises on the mist of morn

Like a majestic verge  

To grant to mortal berth

Another worthy lease

As God plants on the face of earth

Mercy’s fresh masterpiece

Anchored in swells of change

A surf, where seasons shift

And circumstances rearrange

The turf, but not the gift

God siphons from the ash

Of Bygone’s lifeless fray

A jewel for yon eastward sash

A phoenix called Today

How oft we trample it

Underfoot without thought

While, all the while we sample it

With what God’s grace has wrought

Forbid we haste, unawed

By God’s mercy displayed

But as we waken, first applaud

This day that He has made

© Janet Martin

Well known, well-loved easily forgotten verses

that really bear daily repeating, don't they?!!💓🙏

Lam. 3:22-23

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[a]
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Psalm 118:24

This is the day the LORD has made; 

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

A Sweet Endeavor

However God has gifted each of us, may our desire be to

use the gift to bring before Him an offering of praise;

 'a sweet aroma to the Lord!'

a phrase repeated over and over into today's scripture reading...

...a sweet aroma to the Lord

Lev. 1:9,13,17, Lev.2:2, Lev.3:5,16

(as sweet as two little girls having a tea-party💖)

This flight that fuels greeting and farewell will soon adjourn

The sightlines of Today soon snuffed as Time is borne away

Then in the light of this, as we weather life’s twist and turn

May we yearn all the more to trust the Giver of today

Whose mercy, new each morning is sufficient, come what may

This age of lawlessness abounding and love growing cold

Rouses in some a solemn sense of Matthew twenty-four

Earth’s stage is set for prophecy’s fulfillment to unfold

The wage awaiting one and all is pounding on a door

Like storm-charged surf resounding as it seethes against time’s shore

This beckoning-before-The-Reckoning, kindles dawn’s flare

Where deception and rejection thrive like a vile disease

As promotions of ignorance, like oceans of despair

Roll over sin-seared consciences with terrifying ease

As if each moment does not groan with God’s atoning pleas

This gift, this gracious gift granted by God’s grace, kind and good

And truth that does not shift and love no knowledge can explain

Is worth the whys and wherefores of mercy misunderstood

God’s word assures believers that our faith is not in vain

(though not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will Heaven’s reward attain)

…but those who do the will of God, who trust Him and obey

Whose offering of praise is a sweet-smelling sacrifice

Though scoffers scoff, fooled by the serpent’s ‘did God really say?’

And blinded to love’s Offering that paid the sinner’s price

High minded and unholy in thinking darkened by vice

Oho, this flight that fuels greeting and farewell is swift

Its sightlines tune a volatile vista of numbered days

Thus, in the light of this may we embrace its fleeting gift

And never handle thoughtlessly that which ought to amaze

And fill every endeavor with sweet offerings of praise

© Janet Martin

tea-party cleanup!

The Wonderworld of 'Will' or The Best of 'This'

Oh, the wonders of tomorrow...

Little grand-daughter sighed with ecstasy  as she relived

 a euphoric plethora of summer memories

 while peering through winter's window...toward spring!

Tomorrow will soon be today's challenges and joys

Tomorrow will soon steal today's girls and boys

Tomorrow will change (for better or worse) what Today still is

Tomorrow is a world away; let's make the best of This

'Grandma, why did you tape the door shut?', questioned grand-daughter the other day.

"Because it's not very tight", I replied "and we need to keep the shivery wind outside!

But, one warm, wonderful sunny day Gramma will take the tape off!

We will open the door and set the rocking chair and flowers

 back on the deck and have tea out there

and read books and have campfire suppers!

 Won't that be a happy day?!!"

And grand-daughters eyes sparkled with heaven-like anticipation as she sighed,

'ye-e-eth!! and aunty Mel will be here too, right?'

' Oh, I hope so,' was all gramma could promise😅💖

I've always believed anticipation is one of life's purest pleasures,

but let's not miss what is while we dream, right?!

Someday porch flowerpots will brim with pretty petal-plumes

The wooly-white woodland will ring with reawakened tunes

The meadow will be like a green-spun picnic blanket spread

Beneath a canopy of sun-kissed blue skies overhead

The barren branch will burgeon with hues of replenished shade

The gale will gentle its halloos into a serenade

Raindrop-waltzes will wash the world and rouse earth from its sleep

And windows will not frame counterpanes unfurled, white and deep

New beginnings will flower and blossoms will deck the grass

Dreamland’s barred gate will lower and beckon us to trespass

The quiet interlude between harvest and Planting Must

Will turn into a bustling scene of machine-startled dust

The clock will feast on a buffet of quickened hour-chime

Hearthside evenings borne away until next winter-time

And we will taste spring’s cheeriness that waits within our thought

And we will wear the weariness we had somehow forgot

And we will wonder at the way each season swiftly spills

While hunger scavenges hope’s tray that each new day refills

And we will bow our head in thanks to mortal’s gracious God

Where we will soon join silenced ranks in earth’s grave-stippled sod

The wonderworld of 'will' is filled with what yet waits to be

With tears and laughter not yet spilled into a memory

But, lest we miss the best of This that will fill yesteryears

Let's make the most of what yet is before it disappears 

© Janet Martin

Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, 

until you return to the ground--because out of it were you taken. 

For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

Eccles.12:7

Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,

 And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Today's Centrality

Today is another sunny and still quite mild day

in an especially beautiful fall in southern Ontario!

What we do with Today, no matter the weather 

or whoever or wherever we are,

 has an eternal bearing!

Today matters!

Give us a King- Alistair Begg

  

(The excerpt below is found in the message above)

‘It is interesting that Samuel’s life is marked by long periods of silence, then moments when He comes to the fore. He could not ever come to the fore in such usefulness were it not for the fact that long periods of silence were marked by steady faithfulness. What most of us do in the hum drum nature of our lives, in the private personal way, in the routine activities that are our days, those are the things that make us (and Alistair repeats, ‘those are the things that make us’), and it was certainly so with Samuel.

 

Not what was yesterday or morrow’s yet to be

Today alone requires full responsibility

Today’s centrality twixt past and future set

Is all we ever have wherewith a lifetime to beget

To fret for what is not is gross futility

To work with what today allots is wise humility

To recognize its charge cloaked in the commonplace

To trust God with a thankful heart for His unfailing grace

The place of Here and Now, otherwise called today

In light of what mercies endow, bids us to work and pray

Because today effects accountability

The wise do not neglect/forget this most solemn reality

…that nobody escapes. Prepare to meet Thy God

Let hunger feast upon His Word, to leave us fully awed

Not in morrow’s unknown or Bygone’s beaten path

But in Today, the steppingstone to endless love or wrath

The aftermath of feet stirring Today's brief woo

Inevitably leads to He whose Breath of Life we drew

Where today’s toll unchains links in a sacred cord

Until only the soul remains to receive life’s reward

© Janet Martin

Eccles.12:6

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, 

and the golden bowl is broken; 

before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

 and the wheel broken at the well,

Today-sums

After an incredibly productive, bittersweet, hectic week 

I am forcing myself to slow down a bit this morning,

something sometimes hard to do when so much to do seems always in the way!! 

So sometimes I need to consciously carve out little corners of refreshment 

lest Dear Duty blinds me to the Sheer Beauty of Today!

already Today has wowed!

this, the view through the window beside my writing desk.

Thank-you God!

(A view that faithful visitors are quite familiar with

because I love to share the delight of

 this view as it is transformed, morning to morning, season to season)

***

Last Saturday our son moved out for the foreseeable forever future!

As happy as I am for him, I am weathering the inevitable

mother-grief that comes with season-ends.

He has had brief stints of independence before,

but when I saw his books, basketball, fishing rod etc. 

on the heap of stuff piled at the door

I realized this move has a much more permanent flavor!

'Today' often dances across time's threshold so fleet-footedly

 we sometimes forget the cast Today-sums are creating!

So, lets fold hopes and hurts into prayer,

and place them in the hands of Today's Giver!

He is able!

This is what the Lord says—
    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
    who teaches you what is best for you,
    who directs you in the way you should go.

Isa.48:14

The past is filled with all the things we always did ‘Today’

A cast instilled with echoes that sometimes come out to play

The loveliness of laughter in an afternoon beneath

The blue and balmy rafter that sweet summer days bequeath

Before the door we dashed through lowered a dusk-laden bar

On paint-trays that we splashed through on the way To Where We Are

The past, a vast collection of Love’s Once Upon a Time

Replays a frayed reflection of a muffled season-chime

Where once notes fell, keen and precise, in oft overlooked grace

Before the knell of Bygone’s bell enhanced the commonplace

As we are softly smitten by the sheerness of the flit

That scratches like a kitten with the sacredness of it

Look! Here a moment glimmers, ah, already it is spent

Past’s book of ages shimmers with pages once Present-bent/lent

How very velvet is the brush dipped into Time’s veiled tray

As its permanent ink arranges Tableaus of Today

And suddenly, how very rare Right Where We Are becomes

Aware of how a life is a Tally of Today-sums

The past is always hungry for the treasure in our hand

We cannot keep its measure from Yesterday’s shadowland

So, lest we are caught gazing at tincture on Bygone’s tray

Let’s keep a kind eye on the picture falling from Today

Because Love’s Once Upon a Time is always in full swing

A very virile season-chime of Today’s offering

…where God’s grace grants each new Today’s fresh opportunity

(Does it not bid us kneel and pray before we scale its lea?)

Lest boldly we set foot upon its very holy stage

Heedless of Who begets the dawn of Time’s unblemished page

And forget, what is spilled runs rife long after its foray

Because the past is always filled with life we lived Today

© Janet Martin

So, wherever in the world you are

Happy, holy Today!

Moments are a momentous gift!

'Today' sums up a life in no time flat!

Let's treasure the mementos moments make!

I'm Glad That Time is Full of Days

No matter what, for better or worse,

tomorrow today will be over!

(Forever After)

Let's do all we can to make it a good one,

All for the glory of its Giver, God!

I’m glad that Time is full of days

Still waiting to unfurl

Between hurt’s hurdles and dismays

An oyster with a pearl

Between summer and winter’s snow

An autumn ode to grief

A world of woodland-wicks aglow

Then winnowed leaf by leaf

Between the dolor of farewell

The color of surprise

Of sun gold where blue shadows fell

O’er hello’s laughing eyes

Between trails blazed and settled dust

The bittersweet finesse

Of trials teaching us to trust

And treasure/define happiness

Between desire and despair

The opportunity

To take a leap of faith to where

Tomorrow used to be

To walk to years beyond our reach

With little girl and boy

And hold the small hands bound to teach

Old teachers about joy

I’m glad that time is full of days

Still waiting to become

New melodies of thankful praise

To He, whom days come from

I’m glad that time is full of days

With nights tucked in between

Like phantom, featherdown duvets

On Bygone’s evergreen

© Janet Martin

Col.3:17

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, 

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Warriors of Poetry

 

My, my but life/love can be a hard-fought Poem!

Sometimes the empty page mocks the Poet

where frontline/first line footage thunders

like an unanswered prayer!

Each morning is like an empty page

waiting the Poem of Today.

First daylight's swift splash of sunrise has yielded\to just plain Rain Splash!

What will Ink and Quill spill today?

There is much more than meets the page

Of ink-blood left to spill

Surrender, facing center stage

Wears so much rebel still

Between the brute force of desire

And Wonder’s work-day frame

Smolder the embers of a fire

Font yet must fan to flame

Duty and beauty spar and meld

Like diamond-dazzled dust

While angst of prayer-answers withheld

Mold scaffoldings of trust

Sometimes a rhyme’s futility

Mocks the poet at war

With the very same enemy

That Eve did not ignore

My, my, the bloom of love can smart

The thorn that holds the rose

Can rip a hole right through the heart

With what God only knows

The fancy footwork of farewell

Kicks at the pricks; where verse

Is not enough to quench or quell

The blessing (or the curse)

Where age old agonies persist

And ink cannot assuage

The oceanic weight of mist

Waiting to spill to page

…as so much more than we can see

Roars through frontlines of air

While warriors of poetry

Must choose which hues to snare

© Janet Martin

Psalm 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God; 

and renew a right spirit within me.

Hymn of Today

How oft it seems my heart is torn

Twixt want and wonder's 'How?'

While from wellsprings of morn to morn

Mercy renews Love's Vow

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; 

I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

Jer.31:3

Yet I call this to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

22Because of the loving devotionb of the LORD 

we are not consumed,

for His mercies never fail.

23They are new every morning;

great is Your faithfulness!

24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in Him.”

Lam.3:21-24

It was one of those mornings where the knowledge of Hope

grappled with the Anchor; where the heart's cables groaned 

beneath the ache and weight of creature-care,

where there was but one thing remaining; prayer

as Mercy Renewed broke through the darkness!

Hallelujah!

The sunrise like a mighty metaphor...

On shores of hurt and hunger yon doors of daybreak part

Where wars of want and wonder vex body, mind and heart

Where anguish and elation in constant conflict vie

A vexing combination of intent and reply

Before soon slips to After; twixt What Was and Will Be

Time’s roar of tears and laughter pours through humanity

In stunning revelation; nobody left intact

Where no imagination can void matters of fact

Faith and fear, hope and heartache, desire and despair

A smorgasbords of choices, we partake of its fare

Where today hinged to morrow, is like life’s quintessence

Of love’s joy hinged to sorrow, of choice to consequence

Where whatever we weather, more weather waits to be

Where we are altogether bound for more than we see

Where the glory of living is not in what we get

But in the sacred giving earnest heed to The Yet

Of what is sure and certain, still waiting in the wake

Until death’s lowered curtain unveils what is at stake

Until the holy thunder of Last Breath sails the sea

Twixt Shores of Want and Wonder and Vast Eternity

Through doors of Divine Mercy, to shores of you and me

New morning shines with berths of fresh opportunity

Where the grace of the Giver holds Judgment’s bar at bay

He strums the strings that quiver with hope’s/love's hymn of Today

© Janet Martin

Eph.3:14-21

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, 

to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; 

that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

18 May be able to comprehend with all saints 

what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,

 that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly

 above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus 

throughout all ages, world without end.

 Amen.

This song premiered on YouTube half an hour ago!

How unbelievably fitting!! 

I weep and leap for joy!

Oh God, I praise you again!

(Psalm 42)   I will Praise Him Again - City Alight

Life's Most Treasured Collection

I started this poem when today was brand new,

then, along came life love and turned its gem into another almost-memory!

Today is all we have to make the most of what we hold

A cup refilled with give-and-take sparkling with moment-gold

Where it is up to us to choose how we will use its gift

Or who we strive to honor with the dues dawn sets adrift

Today unfurls fresh thralls to whys and wherefores that we chase

No charge too great or small to be accomplished by God’s grace

And for His glory; hallelujah! What an enterprise

To uncover the secret to where true happiness lies

Today soon gathers up its lease of opportunities

As twilight claims another masterpiece of memories

Where what may seem quite commonplace is part and parcel of

Life’s most treasured collection of todays turned into love

© Janet Martin   

Ecclesiastes 9:10

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;

for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge,

nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

 

 

 

(Bygone's) Building Blocks

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

Phil.3:13

..like empty jars

 

today's blush bars gleam with forms not yet filled

(below; yesterday's 'blush bars' because today's 'blush' was gray)

Victoria and I are hoping for a rainy day! It's been s-o-o-o-o long since we've had one!

Bygone; the sphere where yesteryear’s younger endearments waft

A metronome of steppingstones moss covered and mist-soft

Its stomping ground forever bound in volumes undeterred

Where brushstrokes of live, learn and love become a little blurred

Bygone; the age that preserves pages that are moment-laid

Where Now and Here will disappear to panoramas stayed

But, not quite yet; lest we forget to cherish what we hold

Before the sash of dust and ash snuffs today's splash of gold

Bygone; a world that is unfurled before our very eyes

A sea that slips through fingertips as moment-ships capsize

And drift into the silver-blue that seems to have no shore

But gathers in the groan and grin turned into days of yore

Bygone; futile to trace the isle of garnered live and learn

Better to take today and make it worth its no return

To trust the Hand that pours time’s sand-sparkles that soon will be

Fresh footfalls spilled to blocks that build Bygone’s Eternity

....like empty jars today's blush bars gleam with forms not yet filled

Where God allots life's varied jots and joys with which to build 

Then pray that we, with kind humility of servanthood

When day is done have made Bygone as lovely as we could 

© Janet Martin

Here's hoping today's footfalls spill into filled canning jars by tonight!

The Onus of a (Permanent Ink) Fount

The Best Laid Plan of me and you

can always only guess at the details

Thus, each of us should entrust Today into

The Divine Hand that leads with love that never fails

Below a few framed prints of yesterday...

Thanks to a huge fresh basil plant from our local grocery store

pizza was on the menu for yesterday's lunch!

Garden-fresh onions added some extra delish as well! (on one side😅)

...and later, peanut butter cookies!

This morning as I peer into its ethereal frame I see hopes of

a happy wedding day for my oldest sister's only daughter

💓🙏💖🙏💗🙏💝🙏

Each day lowers a frame to fill

The picture it will hold

Is always an Original

Spilled as moments unfold

From Goodness and Mercy, with love

Dawn’s fresh frame challenges

As we ponder time's palette of

Heartache and happiness

Colors of choice and circumstance

Mingle upon the tray

Where soon the frame that morning grants

Nightfall will draw way

The handiwork of Day Gone By

Sets in permanent ink

Before its paint is barely dry

Dusk claims More Than We Think

How swift the gifted frame bears Fact

As prayer, care, work and play

Fills galleries of Looking Back

That steal our breath away

Because what seems so commonplace

As day to day runs rife

Collects frames of grace-upon-grace

Into One Little Life

…where Far More than We Think becomes

The Onus of a Fount

That flows into The Sacred Sums

For which we give account

This morning as we peer into

A brand-new, empty frame

Pray, that at dusk the art we view

Honors the Giver’s Name

For oh, how very terrible

Would be a lifetime spent

Missing The Very Miracle

For which each frame was lent

…Love

© Janet Martin

Let's pray for the glorious miracle of love (like Jesus exemplified)

to fill today's frame with a masterpiece!

1 John 3:16-18

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

 And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 

17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need 

but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 

18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech 

but with actions and in truth.