An Unexpected Host...

Forever is an unexpected Host

Future to past a subtle interchange

Before and ever-after juxtaposed

Like speeding north and south-bound phantom trains

One weighted with Unknown’s eternity

The other with what nevermore can be

And we, it seems straddle the middle track

Caught twixt looking ahead and looking back

Slow down, whoa now, you hasting Thing of need

Where rare and priceless diamond-farthings bleed

I thought I loved you then, but oh, but now

My love has multiplied ten-thousand fold

The seeds have grown, how full the heart-sheaves bow

Where youth, eager for more than they can hold

Are unaware as yet of what we learned

As once upon a time our hunger burned

Like theirs, but oh, but now we cannot grasp

The ease with which the future becomes past

Then, an epiphany of common awe

Stuns us with the deftness of mortal law

Forever never alters its firm stance

Nor can it be persuaded to recoil

Should we on bended knee plead one last dance

With what has become victim of Time’s spoil

There is a Forever that waits beyond

This ballyhoo on earth’s wee  blue-dot pond

But oh, the Forever that first we taste

Comes on us with suave, unforgiving haste

Striking a sword to heart-chords innermost

Forever is an unexpected Host

© Janet Martin

It suddenly struck me like a punch to the gut tonight! Today was so noisy and busy I didn’t really have any thinking time and then tonight while working outside it dawned on me that today a New Forever begins…This week-end Victoria, our ‘baby’ joins the youth group and she will have a somewhat busier social-life leaving mom with many more ‘alone’ evenings and... Time on her hands?! 

I’m trying to remember what those things were that I thought I would do WAY back when I didn’t have time to do anything but look after a family of growing-ness!

Forever seems to add to its archives far too much far too quickly...

Love Loves

Love loves

and we cannot turn it down

We may turn away from it

Utter excuses of unworthiness

Feeling justified then

in our rejection of it,

or our disappointment in it

But love loves

in spite of us

...we cannot turn it down

This is why Jesus came

to teach us how to love

Then imperfection

can put on perfection

not because of who we are

But because of who He is

Thereby

Love loves

and we cannot turn it down

In spite of what we think

or do

or say

or think we ought to think

or do

 or say

Love loves

and we may turn away from it

But

we cannot turn it down

We would always be unworthy

but for Jesus

His love allows us to say 'yes'

in spite of ourselves...

in our weaknesses,
In our brokenness

in shortcomings,

in our gross need

of forgiveness

He so loves us

as we ought to love one another

We cannot turn it down

In spite of our unworthiness

We can say 'yes'

'Yes' to His strength,
'Yes' to His healing,

'Yes' to His fulness

'Yes' to His grace

Because the Father of Love

Is perfect

Filling with worth

our flawed imitations

of Love

Janet~

 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.…1 John 4:9-11

Since someone handed words of appreciation and love back to me with a 'no thank-you', siting shortcomings and weaknesses as reasons, I have been pondering Love.
If we wait until we are without weakness or imperfection then no one could love or be loved
until Heaven!

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!