A Life Full of Reasons...

Wiggle each finger

Count all your toes

Be sure to remember

Eyes, ears, mouth and nose

A tongue for talking

And tasting too,

A back that won’t break

When you tie your shoes

Tickly tummy,

Bendy elbows and knees

Then don’t forget

To thank God for these

Consider the lilies

How perfect each cup

Feel the breeze teasing

Your face tilted up

Marvel at oceans

Cupped softly aloft

In heaven’s blue eons

Where galaxies waft

Touch, taste, treasure

And don’t forget

To thank God always

For all of it

Laughter; what music

And sorrow, what proof

Of having been gifted

With life’s best; true love

Oh my, awesome tally

Oh my, the heart sings

As we count the blessings

Of everyday things

Turn this way, then that

Tell me, what do you see?

Is it a life full of reasons

To live thankfully?

© Janet Martin

This past year in my Sunday School Class we did an 'A Thousand Gifts' challenge,

In no time at all a class of less than ten had over two thousand named 'gifts'. 

Can we count each finger ? they asked

There is nothing too small to be counted, we all agreed...

Today Ann reminds us, 'what's hard brings us together' so even then

there it is;  reasons to be grateful!

 We only enter into the full life -- into sozo --- if our faith gives thanks.
Ann Voskamp

By a Blue Upsy-daisy Breeze

 

For a moment dawn cradled the sun

In the crook of a leafless limb

Then, without pause it began

Its faithful, age-old climb

Over the little reach of tall trees

Propelled into the sky

By a blue upsy-daisy breeze

Teasing earth’s wistful eye

For a moment we think we are young

Cradled in the luxury

Of thinking that Time is long

But then we begin to see

How soon youth is propelled

By an upsy-daisy breeze

Into that blue and yellow place

Of ageless memories

For a moment perhaps we might dare

To be a beggar for days

Gone by; before the new-born air

Reminds us of time’s ways

And how soon every noon is propelled

By a blue upsy-daisy breeze

Into a fond, forever farewell

And fresh-framed memories

© Janet Martin

Before It Is Over...

It is one of those mornings that begs to be broken in with more than a complacent glance...

Over yonder

Barely breathing

Curved against

Earth’s beaming skin

Is a new-born

Burst of morning

Waiting to be

Broken in

Let's be kind,

Oh, let's be gentle 

Soon the newness

Of its birth

Will be nothing

But an echo

Wafting soft

Over the earth

© Janet Martin

This Carpet Whereon Life Is Lent

This carpet whereon life is lent

And time is held

And seasons spent

Then melded to the framework of

The workmanship of man

Is such a patient sweep of sod

Where hurried feet

And stragglers trod

To greet the handiwork of God

And meet its Master Plan

This benchmark betwixt here and there

Beneath Time’s

Palaces of air

Climbs to the beaming skyline where

Another days unveils its face

While on the street the thrum of feet

In staccato

Percussion beats

The carpet whereon life is lent

Then returned to its resting place

The signature of winter’s tree

Like black ink

Is scrawled intricately

Against the pink of yonder brink

Along the edge of sky and land

The carpet whereon life is lent

A snowflake

On time's outstretched hand

Soon folds the showcases we hold

To dust whereon we stand

It begs one’s thought to ponder then

When we have gone

The way of men

And our shell of wand’ring Bent

Is returned to its place of birth

…the carpet whereon life is lent

Then swallowed up

Its filament

Of gathered days, our testament;

Will we leave anything of worth?

© Janet Martin

 Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

Prov.28:14

Fellow-travelers Are We...to day 3 of 2016

Up this ladder through the skies

My, Time's string of hours flies

Like a high-rise of good-byes

Poured in morn’s hello

Pressing hard against the soft

Interplay of sighs that waft

Where soon noon, now poised aloft

Strews the dust below

Who of us has borne this day?

Who can tell its come-what-may?

Who is fit to sneer at they

Clinging to its rung?

Do we not all need the gold

Of a helping hand to hold?

My, the winds of change blow cold

Where Time’s course is hung

…like a ladder from the sky

Where the feet of you and I

Often slip, but then we try

And try and try again

Fellow-travelers are we

Surely then we ought to be

Sympathetic to the plea

Of our fellow-men

© Janet Martin

 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up...1 Thess.5:11