Mighty Mite...

 *Something happened yesterday that reminded me to never-mind-the-mess-moments,

even when it looks like a toy-book-popcorn blizzard hit the house😏

(these pics taken after the popcorn was cleaned up:)

*...for all the slips, stumbles, scoldings, patience loss

the little lad could have mentioned, he told the bus-driver this!

(I picked up 2 older siblings of one of the little girls in my childcare yesterday after school)

Big Sister told me why she was laughing when they got off the bus

Bus driver: Do you have someone new picking you up today?

Little Brother: yup! Her name is Janet and she believes in God!"

and then, Big Sister continued, 'the bus-driver said, me too!'

That 'me too'  instantly changed how they regarded Bus Driver!

Our lives are shaped by moments...

masterpieces are made with brushstrokes and breath-notes!

Let's be mindful artists/composers!
Because
There's a lot at the mercy of moments...

Much, much more than just mere moments

Melting ‘neath sun’s heat, like snow

Meting out in breath-sized morsels

Much more than we’ll ever know

More than muted mist of morning

Kissed with whispers, bronze, gray, pink

More than birth to death, my darling

Falls the thrall of moment-ink

Far beyond triumphant touchdowns

Or the frowns which test our grit

From a moment long-forgotten

Someone hearkens back to it

Then, a moment seems quite sacred

What a weighted mighty mite

As its melds to printed pages

And ages long slipped from sight

Until someone tries the footing

Tastes the pudding, stirs the dust

Stumbling-blocks and stepping-stones, love

Poured into a moment’s Must

What a chariot, this war-room

Battle-plans subject to how

Choices fill the mite of moments

With the height of here and now

© Janet Martin
 

Un-common Wealth on Common Ground

 We all growl like bears;
    we moan mournfully like doves.

Isa. 59:11

Who can one’s worth or wisdom prove?

Or life’s full fortune count

The giver and the taker, love

Supplied by the same fount

Allowances of day to day

Provide a common wealth

God first gives what He takes away

Man owns nothing himself

…but owes his very breath to He

Whose grant we supplicate

And offer up Want’s frantic plea

That often bids us wait

…as Mercy drips like a fresh peach

From chins of much demand

Where both giver and taker reach

Into the selfsame Hand

For what we give He gives us first

God holds the spoon we lick

Where we would all be misers, cursed

With love of purse and brick

But for kind pricks and kicks to wake

Us to the mouth we feed

Ah, both giver and taker break

A loaf of common need

...and therefore have one common boast

No pompous look-at-me

For giver-taker’s least and most

Is simply what we see

The Hand that cups the sands of time

And all its peopled noise

Gives giver and taker the clime

Of living’s sorrow-joys

© Janet Martin


Thinking of all you Iowa-ans digging out of a blizzard...
(how do I know? Hubby is headed that way with a load of pigs needing unloading today
but he was told last night they have three days of digging out to do!!)
H-m-m-m!

sidenote: Jim just called (afternoon) Pigs delivered.
...and he said, the pigs look better than he does! lol!

Our precip came in rain and rain and MORE rain!!!

There's something about a rainy day that finds its way to a poet's pen
a musician's melody,
and a day-dreamer's dancing-feet,
so it seems...

Singin' in the Rain Gene Kelly 

Daybreak...

For pessimist or optimist...

 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, 

for I have put my trust in you. 

Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

Ps.143:8

A tremor oe’r the treeline where a dark wave snuffed its thoroughfare

And slipped night's sea across sight’s colored walkways in between

Is softening star-stippled deep where we are all still half-asleep

As tides recede and charcoal dons halcyon gold-blue-green

The door to evermore swings wide and time is like a beaming bride

Because, hinged to eons of yore love’s never-before waits

A blush upon dawn’s yawning east; heaven lays out a banquet feast

Come, come the Keeper pleads and bleeds ajar far yonder gates

A smoky silhouette of limbs is set against Hope's newborn hymns

The skyline like a choir sings and wakes a tranquil world

Where promises of God abide; His grace anoints the morning-tide

That sweeps across the countryside in love’s banner unfurled

© Janet Martin


okay, I admit...'the skyline choir' is a little sulky today, lashing its 'teary hymns' against drab sweeps but we all know its just a little weather-tantrum and it will pass😉

Broken Strings...

I prayed for my daughter in TO this morning 

but often I am tongue-tied in knowing exactly how to pray...

Yet overcome with awe that we may boldly approach the throne of grace...

 In the morning I like to read a poem or two...this morning I laughed out loud at how perfect and timely the poems were on the first page I opened the book to...

(Alfred Lord Tennyson was the first poet I fell in school-girl love with
when I read his poem The Brook )

 This one required a few reads to let the depth of the lines sink in...

For what we ought to pray, oh Lord

We often humbly guess

Your Higher Way vexes the chord

That tunes our happiness

We, pioneers of skin and bones

Oft know not where to start

You press your ear against our groans

And hear our heart of hearts

….and all those thing we do not tell

Your kind discretion knows

You see beneath breath's fragile shell

Where want and need oppose

So when we pray, Lord, as we raise

Our praise and agony

Gather these broken strings and frays

Into a melody

...and turn our doubt to humble trust

Transfix our Surety

Beyond this mist of dust-to-dust

To where no prayer will be

© Janet Martin

A promise to those who take refuge in the Lord, not idols.

When you cry out for help,
    let your collection of idols save you!
The wind will carry all of them off,
    a mere breath will blow them away.
But whoever takes refuge in me
    will inherit the land
    and possess my holy mountain.”

Isa.57:13

Dear God, how oft the thing that draws us to You is nothing we would ever choose! 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isa. 55:8-11

I've posted this song many times because I love it...