Reaching...

To touch

Anything

Or anyone

We cannot remain

Clenched

We must reach…

Sometimes

We reach

With our hands

And sometimes

We reach

With a prayer

To touch our loved ones

Wherever

They are

Is life’s

Most beautiful Blessing,

By far

© Janet Martin

As the limo door closed to waving hands, to smiles and tears, I was glad to know they are never farther than a prayer away.

Robyn and Emily Curry (wedding day photos)

  

Robyn and Emily Curry

October 12, 2013 

Here are the first pictures!

our family...

    

Hope and Thanksgiving Song

See how the light turns darkness into morning

See how the leaf falls from autumnal limb

Yet soon sweet springtime, in hope’s glad adorning

Unfurls bud-beauty in whispers of Him

See how life mingles finely, joy and sorrow

Uttered in tears; common voice of the soul

See moment-strength offer hope for tomorrow

See how God’s mercy embraces the whole

See how the power of love has no borders

See how no hand can abolish its prayer

Over the ocean to earth’s farthest corners

God intercedes; hope need never despair

Blessed assurance; from Eden’s beginning

See how I AM is forever the same

Man is a creature of pitiful sinning

Hope clings to Jesus who covers our shame

See how Time heals life’s deepest disappointments

And how earth's seasons return to the sod

Yet our faith, an intangible substance

Fills us with hope and thanksgiving to God

© Janet Martin

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada. (Today is the Canadian Thanksgiving.)

Give Thanks. Ps. 136

Mystery...

Before we left for the church...her last moments of living at home.

Strange, how a book of lasts turns into a book of ‘firsts’

How, as one door closes another opens

As bouquets are tossed

And limo doors close

The end turns into a beginning…

Janet~

More photos will come, but I don't have any yet:) Next to the day Emily was born this was the best.

Wedding Day

Here we are…

About to walk

Through a door

We have rehearsed

A thousand times before

In thought,

But now Thought watches

As our feet follow a path

Not of fantasy

But of faith

And reality

Shaping

Memory

Here we are…

About to embark

On a day

We will remember

As long as God

Grants us life

For today

If the Lord wills,

Robyn becomes our son

As our daughter

Emily

Becomes

His wife

© Janet Martin

 We welcome you to rejoice with us in thought and prayer today as we celebrate Rob and Emily’s marriage.

I long to tread slowly across this Sweet Day

To gather its gold before Time claims its prey

Dear God, bless and keep us and let this day be

When night slips upon it, a dear memory

This Moment Softly Stealing

  

 

We are 'playing' today:)

This moment, softly stealing

Like the nighttime from the sea

Melds its measure like a mantle

Gently tugging you from me

This moment, sweet enchantment

Of life’s ordinary things

Is all tangled up in memory

Tugging innermost heart-strings

 I don’t tell you how this moment

Of mixed joy and grief imparts

Tenderness into my teardrop

Tugging echoes to my heart

For in moments softly stealing

Love and loss and hope entwine

As we, at a moment’s mercy

Dream and leap, reach and resign

© Janet Martin

As Emily left the house just now it hit me; we worked side by side for the last time this morning, as her 'living' here in our home (she is doing all the bride-to-be stuff from now until Sat.)…yes, Lord willing she will ‘come home’ often, but it won’t be the same because she will be ‘visiting’.   

As I mentioned something about next week she grinned mischievously and said, I won't be here!
 

...Where Memories Grow

The rhythmic chant of tick and tock

Soon strips the rose and hollyhock

Its song of leaf and garnered sheaf

Wan remnants on hillside and walk

The minuet of rise-and-set

Cradles our victory and regret

And still the clock chants tick and tock

In dusk to dawn-sky pirouette

How soon the swoon of sun and moon

Slips over December and June

Its silhouette a seamless thread

Of midnight, morning, afternoon

The ebb and flow of bud to snow

Of holding on and letting go

Drips from life’s spoon, its tender tune

Falls to a place where memories grow

© Janet Martin

Here's to another day of planting memories!
(Victoria just now announced, 'tomorrow we can say, the wedding is tomorrow!';)

The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation. Ps. 118:14

Making Treats and Memories

Victoria was the camera-girl last night as we, with many friends, made 'memories'.

Life and
memories are not a practiced thing...
they fall around us
like rain in spring
or summer sun
or autumn leaves
or flakes of snow...
These gathered sheaves
adorn  thought's landscape
...precious glow.
and we pray
as days repeat
oh, come what may
that its harvest
will be sweet

Janet~


The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. Ps. 116:5