Don't Trip On The Roses...

Sometimes on a week like this it would be easy to trip over the 'roses'.

My brother-in-law Les was in hospital one night. He has a terrible flu or something. They sent him home for the weekend, hoping his double vision will clear.

Hubby Jim ( after a few tests) was told he has a tumor in his bladder. 

He is booked for surgery on Feb. 16.

Sister-in-law Karen (my brother Dave's wife) was rushed to London Hospital from the small local hospital after her blood-test results alarmed the Doctors...

Last night my nephew Anthony (Mike and Marlene's son) broke his collar-bone

Don’t take it for granted

Each day is enchanted

With mercies kind-planted

Where trials intrude

Day breaks bronze and yellow

Grace drips from yon cello

Equipping time’s hello

With man’s hope renewed

Don’t trip on the ‘roses’

Though thorn-tree imposes

The Father who chose us

Abides, age to age

His ways are higher

Than Thought’s haze and mire

Oh, don’t miss the choir

Because of the stage

Ah, someday in heaven

For those saved, forgiven

All hurt will be driven

From its Endless Day

No tear-shaped surprises

No trouble that tries us

No why-Lord disguises

As earth falls away

© Janet Martin

Faith-forge

 God sends enough yeses to defend guesses 

and enough no's to keep us on our toes/knees

How Eve-like we are; desiring to be as wise as God

How Adam-like we are; enticed by the lust of our eyes 

Sometimes we can't remember how we got through 'it' but God does

God tickles our scope of vision with glimpses of Him

All those 'important' things we think we will ask someday

 will be answered with one face-to-face look at His scars and His glory

The older we get the more learn 

about what we thought we knew

Easy to say 'surrender'

But far, far harder to do

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding.

Prov.3:5

What kind of winter is this?! said a little girl,

vexed at the disappearing snow...

What kind of 'winter' is this?! we say sometimes,

vexed at our disappearing comfort-zones...

Sometimes our hearts and hands are wrung and wrung with constant care

And prayers and pleas of seed-sized faith are flung to the blue air

The groundwork for grand miracles often evades our eyes

As God works in mysterious ways we do not recognize

He gathers up our trembling cries and cups us in His Hands

Goodness and mercy’s shape and size man oft misunderstands

For God knows how the heart is prone to worship wood-stone fluff

And confidence man puts in man is simply not enough

His ways of drawing strays to Him sometimes seems harsh and hard

But He, so wise, faithful and kind is always on our guard

And like a tender Shepherd He searches through dark and cold

To find the sheep that wandered from the safety of the fold

Earth’s common paradises offer a most fragile peace

Where everything we hold is everything we must release

Foolish to fix our faith on foundations that melt like snow

Better to trust the Hand that never, ever lets us go

© Janet Martin

Sunrise Song...

Ah, nice, we say and perhaps pray

Before duty of day-to-day

Fills our hands

With toils demands

To keep the howling wolves at bay

Good, good to work but not to shirk

The Giver of love’s pain and perk

This is the day

The Lord has made

For farmer, teacher, preacher, clerk

Thought authors deed that falls like seed

Blessing and burden intercede

Where with fresh chance

God always grants

His grace sufficient for each need

Soon supper smells and citadels

Toll toil and twilight’s dusky bells

Ah, nice we say

Oh, pray we pray

To He who refills mercy’s wells

© Janet Martin

To Today's Legacy-authors

 This is the life-summary of Clarence; a faithful husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather

whose funeral visitation I attended last evening...

Such a testimony causes us to re-evaluate our own Time-expenditure, does it not?

What, when we have writ our story

Will the sum of our days be?

When death gathers up life’s glory

Was it lived for God or ‘me’?

Inhale, exhale, mercy thunders

Granting choice another chance

Morning, heaped with untried wonders

Offers kind deliverance

A new day hinged to spent ages

A new day to make amends

A new day to write on pages

That our final exhale ends

What, when grace ceases its glory

Will the sum of these days be?

When death gathers up life’s story

Was it writ for God or ‘me’?

© Janet Martin

Thank-account

 Came home much later than I thought I would from a funeral visitation for a friend's father,

Supper dishes are heaped in the sink 'cause Matt and Victoria attend a youth-group

Bible Study on Wed. nights...
but with some keen reminders recently of the ephemeral-ness of life/health

this sink full of dirty dishes is a thing of beauty when

one has the health and strength to do something about it!

 ...tomorrow;-)

When we start to count our blessings

Rather than all that we lack

Soon it leaves the mouth confessing

We get more than we give back

When we start to chart the favors

Showered on us day and night

Soon it fills the heart with flavors

Too manifold to recite

When we stop the pity party

And the doleful woe-is-me

We begin to feel a hearty

Thank-the-Lord humility

When we take a tender tally

Of daily blessings renewed

Pray, whether hilltop or valley

For a song of gratitude

© Janet Martin