Dear Little Tree...

 October...

 November...

 December...

 January...

February 

 ...the trees have been tested this year with everything winter could throw at it and our 24 hr. mild spell (a degree or two above freezing) is plunging today and for the coming week so no pretty green dress-buds in sight yet...

This morning...

Dear little tree

How long you’ve borne the thrust of winter’s will

How long you’ve worn its garb of white

And suffered its blue chill

Dear little tree,

You stand knee-deep in nature’s cloak resigned

You do not shake your limbs at God

But wait for zephyrs kind

Dear little tree,

You seem to know it is no use to rant

How futile to rebel to snow

And sundry season-chant

Dear little tree,

You’ve suffered long and yet methinks I hear

Within your stilly wood a song

Of springtime drawing near

© Janet Martin

Thank-you God

Dad didn’t get in for his surgery until this afternoon. He was booked for 8:00 a.m. if there were no emergencies. Mr. If did make an appearance.

The wife of the man who was rushed in hugged my mother thanking her for allowing them to do life-saving surgery on her husband.
Dad came out of surgery around 5:00 p.m. It was a triple by-pass and they will wake him up around 9:00 tonight so our prayers continue.

Thank-you God, such simple words

Yet filled with heart and soul

Thank-you for the miracles

That only You control

Thank-you for Your mercies

And the peace within your care

Thank-you God, such simple words

And yet, a perfect prayer

© Janet Martin

Of Pride, People and Purpose

   

Image Source...(check it out!)

To point my finger at another

Is not very smart

For I know that God is watching

And He sees my heart

Criticism has no merit

We are students, all

Shame on me as I inherit

After pride; a fall

We should share compassion, courage

Brothers, sisters, we

Created to help one another

And give God glory

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on Hope

When life’s load becomes
Too heavy to bear

Fold it between
Your fingers

In prayer

***

Today is only twenty-four hours

Then it is gone forever

Hope is an ageless, Timeless God

That no tick-tock can sever

***

Yea, though I walk through the valley

Of the shadow of death

There is One who goes before me

God of heaven and earth

His rod and staff, they comfort me

No evil will I fear

For no matter where life leads

I know that He is near

***

Hope is a thing we cannot see

To hope in gods of stone

Is to hope in futility

For God is Hope alone

We cannot see His face and yet

We sense Him, oh, so near

For God is Hope; hope is not dead

Until Time disappears

…and then, the hour of Hope’s reward

For as this life grows dim

All who have trusted in the Lord

Will ever be with Him

***

Rock of ages cleft for me

Hope for all humanity

Never can a storm or gale

Crush love’s Hope that cannot fail

***

Oh, sweet, sweet hour of prayer

Hope is restored therein

For God beholds each hurt we bear

And as we cry to Him

He sends His whisper; we release

Our longing in His arms of peace

***

Just as I am; God You love me

Forgiven, justified

Just as I am; how I love Thee

Hope born as Your Son died

***

What a Friend we have in Jesus

How He longs to befriend all

Hope is found in His forgiveness

And lost if we scorn His call

***

Man of sorrows, what a Name

Hope of sinners bore our blame

Dare we yet choose our guilt

In place of Love’s offering spilt?

***

Oh God our help in ages past

Our hope for years to come

There is no other name on earth

That draws the sinner Home

***

ABC’s of Hope Is…

Abiding

Blood-bought

Calvary

Divine

Eternal

Faithful

God

Heaven

Invisible

Jesus

Knowing

Life

Might

Nurturing

Omnipotent

Peace

Quiet

Redemption

Security/Salvation

Trusting

Undefeatable

Victory

Worship

X-cellent

Yahweh

Zeal

***

Without hope…we die

***

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isa. 40:31

Keeper of Time's Clock

 Image is a page from Psalms: chapters 138 &139

Ah, Keeper of Time’s sun and sorrow clock

You plan and tend to each, our numbered days

The wise man trusts You, Keeper, as he walks

With prayer-shod feet into Vast Unknown’s haze

We cannot clench within our keep the hour

Vainly we grasp to resurrect its dead

But Thou, oh hand of loving, holy power

Will not forsake us in its mile of dread

Ah, Keeper of Time’s fear and faith-wrought fight

Its filigree falls beyond our control

Yet nothing befalls man beyond Your sight

And with this promise we our fear console

Into Your hands, oh Keeper of Time’s clock

We commit all that we can never know

And as we yield to Thee each step we walk  

We cling to peace that only You bestow

© Janet Martin

As I write this my dad is having by-pass surgery so I am in an attitude of continuous prayer that God will guide the surgeon’s hands…

There are ten kids in my family so we set up a visiting schedule just so we don’t all come at once; yet, I know we are all there with him in prayer!

Writer to Her Muse

How can I forget you?

Ah love, each time I try

You vex me just beyond my reach

A phantom butterfly

How casually you slip

Twixt touch and guarded thought

Compelling me with luring lines

To revel in your jot

...so you and I thus dance

A sensual, soulful trip

As resistance and hunger jive

Twixt thought and finger-tip

...and if I beg you go

I feel like I might die

Yet if you stay I’ll ever chase

You; phantom butter-fly

Then you and I must find

A way to synchronize

You, half-rebelicious, kind

And me, your eager prize

I cannot forget you

Darling finagling rue

To chastise you within a poem

Is all that I can do

© Janet~

Heirs of Tomorrow

Yes, sometimes I forget

…it isn’t hard to do

And choose toil’s little odds and ends

Stealing time spent with you

How swift each season flies

A soft and subtle reach

Teasing the baby from our arms

While we hug, hold and teach

Once upon yesterday

We were children, carefree

And never gave a second thought

To love’s wise legacy

The tide that carried us

Still rushes ‘cross the wild

Now we leave in its wide-flung wake

Our footprints for a child

Here run tomorrow’s heirs

To everything we weave

We ought to touch with tender care

The moments in Time’s sieve

A child, but not for long

Time’s keen deliverance

Will leave those things we made for them

As their inheritance

© Janet Martin

Before supper I picked up fresh eggs at a local farm. A little boy was hammering two pieces of scrap wood together in the shed where they keep the eggs. When I asked him what he is making he told me 'a sled’ and without pausing he got up, pinched his creation in a vice-grip and began sawing the end with a small hand-saw. Next I asked him what he is going to use for the part to sit on, and again without pausing in his ‘work’ he replied, ‘oh, I don’t know yet’, his cheeks rosy from cold and exertion and his eyes gold with dream-dust.

What are we leaving these heirs of tomorrow?

…these precious, precious heirs!

'Once-Had-Beens'

   

Image Source

Someday life’s little 'bursts of bad'

And vexing twists that drive us mad

Will be a blip upon time’s screen

And nothing more than ‘once-had-been’

These galling interviews with woe

Life's roller-coaster high and low

Are brief eighth-notes of in-between

What will be, is, then ‘once-had-been’

Nothing alights never to leave

And joy waits past this thing we grieve

Beyond Time’s winter wafts spring-green

While now we shape its ‘once-had-been’

Thus within our bosoms we

Cling to this gladsome guarantee

‘This too shall pass’; clocks intervene

Nudging each day to ‘once-had-been’

God, help us not to lose our way

But teach us how to live each day

Committed to its moment-mien

Before it falls to ‘once-had-been’

© Janet Martin

My friend is having a ‘when it rains it pours’ stage in their family. We tried looking on the bright side by remembering eventually this time will be a little blip in their lives of what once had been...so we went skiing with her little boy (the one I baby-sit;), had an out-door picnic, albeit a shivery one and tried to imagine everything warm and green instead of cold and white!