Prayer For the Day

Dear Lord, help us to trust in You

Though we cannot understand it

In our earth-dimmed point of view

Fill our need as You see fit

Dear Lord, let every prayer we raise

Be more than pious words we spill

But rouse in us hope’s humble praise

And faith’s submission to your will

Dear Lord, guide every step we take

For oft we stumble and we slip

Still, let Your promises awake

Love’s sweet, assuring fellowship

Dear Lord, help us to do our part

And not to weigh with pride, the price

But teach us how, in hand and heart

To be a living sacrifice

© Janet Martin

Before Tomorrow is Today...

I'm re-posting the quote that Cyndy in Montana posted this morning. Find out where she found it and how it inspired her here.

Perhaps when you have slipped from me

To that Yon echo-laden trove

Then you might be the memory

For which I pine with homesick love

Therefore I cannot stand too long

To stare at what once was, because

Then I might miss this moment-song

Spiraling without lull or pause

Pray that I am amazed, half-crazed

With hunger, not for what has been

But, for that which spills in Todays

And middle-Mays all new-born green

Then when you fade in dusk darkness

And I should turn to glance, perhaps

With humble wonder at what was

I hope my heart dances and claps

© Janet Martin

Before Tomorrow is Today

Let’s get out there and make a
dancing, clapping memory!

Crank up the volume and sing like you mean...your life-song, that is;-)

In the Middle of a Beautiful May Day

 Every baby-sitting day for the past bit, Little Guy (he has just learned to chatter;) will say in his two-year-old way-too-cute-way, regardless of the weather, 'it's a nice, nice day!'

Come; take the afternoon off just to tease

Buttercup belles bobbing in blithesome breeze

Come; linger long at the bend in the brook

Just to be stirred by the song in its crook

Come; dare to dream the whole green day away

Without excuses but this; it is May

Come, walk out to the blue line where the sky

Curves to the verve of earth’s most verdant cry

Then on our way to the top of the hill

We’ll pause to watch the woodland giddy, spill

Bloom to the bark that was barren and dark

Where gales raged grim through tresses stiff and stark

We’ll plan to purchase with naught but a smile

Duty’s permission to play for a while

Play in spring’s lusty elixir of dirt

Play where a summer of flower-streams flirt

Play ‘neath a dome of azure endlessness

Revel in hope’s sun-flavored happiness

Come where the lark-lilt festoons friendly air

Nature is a flawless show; earth a chair

Come, pause care’s bubble of trouble a bit

Feel the freedom of self-forgiveness; sit

Right in the middle of Beautiful Day

Then thank the Lord for winter’s reward; May

© Janet Martin

How Swift and Smooth The Song

 I keenly felt the friendship of farewell even as I dearly held fond moments on Mother's Day morning...But,with change come lovely new firsts; I didn't cook this year. Rob and Emily did:)
Melissa FB'd a very special card.

How swift and smooth the notes of life and love weave into song

It drifts upon the vesper where blue shadows scrawl upon

Time waiting like a stanza still unwritten while it pens

Tempo of tears and laughter into fond Remember Whens

The harmony of having held melds with our present tense

Where letting go and holding blend in stunning dissonance

Aha, tomorrow slips to yesterday; Today’s baton

Moves to the music from the lips that drip with dusk and dawn

Holy, holy, the melody composed by dark and light

In rising, falling concord of good-morning and good-night

Spills oft, thought-soft, as sudden music of a memory

Moves smiles through tears where years have wended, penning poetry

How swift and smooth the ever-after seals within its keep

The sheet-music of middle-May and apple-blossom sweep

Where ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ and rise and shine’ compete

Like Maestros while an orchestra plays life’s song, bittersweet

© Janet Martin

...of fond farewell songs. We all have one, don't we?

Would You Trade It?

Would you trade it? Those wrinkles on your face,
For a little more poise and youthful grace,
A little more lightness in your step,
A little more ‘swagger’ in your hip,
Would you trade the morsel of wisdom you’ve garnished
For that youthful gleam still untarnished?
Would you go back if you could today?
To start over in some distant yesterday?
Would you trade experience for carefree laughter?
Would you give back your children and the here ever after

To be young; to start all over again,
To experience once more past sorrow and pain,
To live out your firsts with no more knowledge
Than the one who must yet go through grade school and college,
Would you give her back, your lovely wife,
To start a-fresh this journey of life?
If tonight you heard God’s voice
Give you this impossible choice, would you trade it?
Sometimes I wonder why we fret and sigh
At the speed with which the years hasten by,
When in reality most would not likely go back
Knowing what age gives that in youth we lack,
So when wrinkles come and knees get stiff
I hope I’ll believe that age is a gift,
And God’s design is best,‘tis truth,
For there’s much we would never trade back for youth

Love, from your sister Janet

Back when I was 39 and thought 40 was OLD!! I gave my brother Dave this poem. In a few weeks he turns 50. The oldest of my 'three little brothers' turns 40 today. (When we were still all at home our family was sort of divided into groups; the four oldest then the 3 little girls and the 3 little boys:)

Happy 40th birthday, Lewis!

The Journey of Love

The hurt of love, like rose’s thorn

Can leave the heart ragged and torn

But love commits to pay its price

Humility and sacrifice

The hope of love, like morning’s light

Spills through the darkness of the night

Into frail cups of want and woe

Love grants the grace whereby we go

The help of love is like a staff

On which we lean; we weep and laugh

And learn to let go of the fear

That otherwise would commandeer

The joy of love, like bud’s full bloom

Encourages us to resume

The hurt and hope and help of it

To taste the joy of love a bit

©  Janet Martin