Not Your Typical Mother's Day Poem

(Photo is from the book, Notes on Love and Courage by Hugh Prather)

We will always be hurt most

Where love runs most deeply

Testing the measure

Of words spouted cheaply

Disappointment often wears

Not the face of strangers,

But family and friends

Born with human nature

Our own weaknesses

Are not excuses

For self-pity or revenge

We should remember Jesus

…and forgive as does He

What we cannot erase

We are broken vessels

Saved by grace

© Janet Martin

 Thinking of hurting mothers this morning. May God's grace fill you with unexpected joy!

 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Ps. 23

Forgive Me? from a Mom

For those times

I criticize

When I should encourage

Or worry

When I should pray

Or talk

When I should listen

Or fling my arms up

When I should fold them around you

Or scold

When I should help

Or frown

When I should smile

Or work

When I should play

Or run

When I should walk

Or sigh

When I should say ‘thank-you’

  

"I’m sorry,
Forgive me?".

Janet~

Heart-string Tempests

Something on yonder berm tugs at something inside of me

And draws me to the verge of what I cannot fully see

Darling, it seems before we have a chance to fully taste

The moment in our hands it is extracted and replaced

The tempest on a heart-string blurs fathoms of faith and fear

Where ‘hello, love’ and parting intertwine and commandeer

Look, look, the shell of new farewells is dawning on the east

And oh, I dare not linger for Time is a hungry beast

But still I must for soon the dust of it drifts on the west

A sun and shadow vortex never needing time to rest

Darling, a sacred citadel of hold and letting go

Erects itself within my heart in tempests, searing, slow

Sometimes I barely bear this thing surging o’er yonder hill

For innocence must soon learn recompense; life’s good and ill

Are never very far apart; the heart will testify

How readily its laughter spawns oceans within the eye

Meanwhile, the smile that fathers tears ever so willingly

Strengthens the tempest in my heart soft-softly killing me

© Janet Martin

Mother

Mother, oh, is there any other word on earth so dear?

Than she who gives her Best of life to those within her care

Mother, the name of her rouses within the heart love’s tear

For she who holds her children in her arms and in her prayer

Mother, we never will outgrow her love for it is such

No matter whether young or old, her voice is never far

Her hands that held and nurtured, hold and nurture still, her touch

A thing of prayer no matter where her darling children are

Mother, the beauty of her none can ever improve on

Her hands work-worn, her face a love-lined picture of God’s grace

“Mother, I (we) pray today a blessing heaven-sent upon

You, for nobody on this earth can ever take your place

© Janet Martin

Praying esp. for ‘the littles’ who mourn the loss of mother…

More Mother's Day poems here and here and here.

We Call It Spring

"I love this shade of green against this shade of blue", sighed Victoria, tilting her head to taste this thing that we call spring... 

All misty-eyed the morning woke

And breathed on bonded bud that broke

To gild the limb with hymns of green

Where once stricken stillness had been

Before the glad awakening

Of earth’s re-birth that we call spring

All whisper-soft and warm the air

Drew from the crypt of storm, a prayer

Where earth becomes a Living Room

And every hill, a Thing of Bloom

And every tree a kind of king

Crowned with a jubilee called Spring

Then humankind, once dull and blue

Becomes a little gladder too

For where the air was clad with cold

It beams and streams in reams of gold

And Living is A Lovely Thing

Kissed with the bliss that we call spring

© Janet Martin

Could you pray for Karen, suddenly bed-ridden once again in this most wonderful weather?! Dave is still undergoing appointments without diagnosis, but he is feeling a lot better! thank-you all who pray/prayed!

The Invincible Invisible

To block advancement man builds barricades

Wire and weapons, threats dark with despair

But each invention so carefully laid

Cannot dissuade the advance of a prayer

Hope’s first-resort wings from lips, hearts and minds

Over vast mountains, through dark midnight air

Across the ocean through enemy lines

No one can stop the advance of a prayer

Unbelief, cold in attire of boast

Bold in the hold of gold’s fraudulent claim

Cannot withhold from the heart’s uttermost

Prayer, as love utters compassion by name

Wanderer, warrior, pauper or king

Comrade, stranger, anyone, anywhere

Can be touched by this most wonderful Thing

For none can thwart the advance of a prayer

No one can run from it, no one can hide

Prayer can slip through the most heart-hardened place

Nothing can usurp the tears of God's Bride

For nothing exceeds the power of His grace

© Janet Martin

Sometimes we question God because we do not understand His ways, but this He said...

 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts". Isa.55:9