Five-Foot-Three...

 Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be tall.

Especially when I'm stretching to snag something off the top kitchen-shelf with a wooden spoon😉

I was born five inches too short

To fulfill fantasy

Because the Good Lord saw it fit

To make me five foot three

So, though I need a stool to reach

The highest kitchen shelf

I’ll be as thankful as can be

Because I am myself

And though, foolishly, I admit

I sometimes envy those

Who always seem ‘the perfect fit’

For any style of clothes

I do not care to waste away

On wish-futility

But make the most of every day

That takes my five-foot three

…so when I think my height a curse

As some far shelf I rue

I’ll remember it could be worse

I could be five-foot-two

© Janet Martin

For All Those Things That Never Change...from a mom

'Because' I replied, dissatisfied with the vague answer when asked how Youth spent an evening/well into the night "because 'just hanging out' can cover a multitude of possibilities!"

(I well recall that answer:)

"Oh, so you don't trust us?" was the instant challenge to which 'old mother' replied,

"all my trust in the world won't keep you/th from temptation

and if you are a healthy red-blooded youth, you will be tempted

because THAT is one thing that does not change in spite of everything that does

which is why mothers pray for their sons/daughters...

They have no idea (yet) how many prayers follow, cover and carry...

Compensation comes in measures Youth cannot yet realize

Some things never change in spite of what plain sight just might surmise

Mother has a reason for the seasoned views that she maintains

…she was young like you once too with hunger coursing through her veins

We who seem quite antiquated to the up and coming clan

Wear suspicious second looks because of ways common to man

Where no matter how the tides may turn or what they might estrange

As the years goes by they too will learn how some things never change

She will always worry/pray not just because that’s what moms do

But because she knows the way a foot can twist inside a shoe

And for all the words invented to assuage and dismiss doubt

It is possible to tuck worlds between words that are left out

There will always be temptation (but never without escape)

Best intentions are worth nothing without deeds that give them shape

Idle hands are easy subjects for the devil to employ

Secret guilt is like a lesion that robs life of peace and joy

When your brow, still smooth a satin wears a crown with hints of snow

And the dust that young heels kicked up feels like just a wink ago

In some yonder sudden moment in time’s tender youth forsook

You will understand the reason for your mother’s searching look

 

© Janet Martin

Moms have been praying for ages!

 Are you a praying mother?

The world needs them now more than ever!

Want Is Like A Wagon...

Want is like a wagon that we heap with wish and whim

Hope is like a hunger that we know will lead to Him

Want is like a weight we carry without joy or peace

Hope is like the wings that bear us to where Want will cease

Want enslaves us with the cravings that chain us to loss

Hope makes servants of those willing to suffer love’s cross

Want rivals twixt need and greed, its pleading to fulfill

Hope is always humbly fixed and yielded to God’s will

© Janet Martin

1 Tim.6:3-10

NIV

These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Almost Flowers...

Isn't it exciting?! Standing on the edge of a world of almost-flowers!

 Gardens of the mind begin to become more defined...

This post is a revival of bygone August blooms, partly to remind us of what waits

and partly to retaliate against nature's fresh white scarf 

draping the frozen countryside this morning😏

Facing places filled with traces of fond graces left behind

March is like a threshold leading to a world not of the mind

Hope shaped into almost-flowers flares on furrows, stark and brown

Save for sparkle where night’s artist scattered stars and feather-down

Leaning like a school-girl trying to see mirrors in a stream

March is like a door-half open, teasing us with more than Dream

Where the scenes that long we carried in a cherished world within

Start to break through nature’s barriers of mud and bud-clad skin

Grinning like a boy when summer frees him of work,booked and shoe-ed

March is like a mother teaching patience to Her restless brood

Where the bell that tolls from heavens torn between blue, gold and gray

Wakes within the heart a hunger for the fine feast of today

Teasing coppice with the sloppy kisses of sun, rain and snow

March is Mischief, vexing us with winter’s cold hold letting go

While Want presses Expectation to the windows of the world

Waiting for the salutation of that first flower unfurled

© Janet Martin