The High Call of Home-making...

From a grandma's vantage-point I can say from this...

 ...to this ...

is a blink!

 ...to mothers/homemakers and future mothers/homemakers

 Thou, Keeper of love's sacred springs

Where childhood's feet splash through

Thou, daughter of the King of kings

 The world depends on you

Thou, hand that rocks the cradle, oh

Though humble seems thy role 

There is no greater charge, oh no

Than that of a child's soul

Thou, matriarch with tender voice

Thou mother in the home

'Child makes a choice and then the choice

Will make who they become'

 

...so, thou with baby in thy arms

Or children at thy knee

Be of good cheer, thy presence warms

Both home and family

Thy gentle voice is like a song

Thy touch, like hope unfurled

Thy common toil should rank among

The grandest in the world

Thy confidence in God to guide

In pathways, true and right

Thy mother-mild to kneel beside

Thy little child at night

Oh, may the comfort of thy love

And faithful 'being there'

Be like a poignant symbol of

God's faithful love and care

Thou, teacher of obedience

May love's humility

Make home a royal residence

For God and family

Janet Martin

 

I cannot force you to listen to these messages below but I do ever-so-highly recommend it!(after hubby suggested that I might like them...he listens to this speaker sometimes while he is driving)

 

Messages by Jack Graham to exhort and encourage godly girls and women, esp. wives and mothers.

The Godly Woman

The Wise Woman

A Leader in Your Lap

A Woman's Choice

(the ending of this message directed to men)

 

 Have I not commanded you? 

Be strong and courageous. 

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, 

for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” 

Joshua 1:9

Bull-fight (or Something Like It)...or, Art of Discovery

Waiting for the first little ones to arrive...

Two weeks ago one of the dads said his son's highlight at Janet's house is good food
...and finding worms!
 (more on that if you click this link)

Last week his son was delighted to inform me that they have worms at their house too!

What have you been delighted to discover recently?

Yesterday I 'discovered' the thrill of seeing a real bluebird for the first time in my life!

 I wonder what we will discover today on our way to The Prize worth fighting for!

 Hopefully it will amount to a little more than this...

The Prize worth fighting for is veiled with time’s regale of days

Regale of days stirs sight and insight with discovery

Discovery is rife with joy and disappointment’s ways

And disappointment’s ways teach us grace and humility

Grace and humility keep greed and jealousy at bay

Ah, greed and jealousy are like a noose about the heart

The heart, ‘oh, who can know it’; wild bull in a jar of clay

A jar of clay The Potter longs to make a work of art

A work of art in spite of how our nature tends to be

Our nature tends to be self-based; self wants and wants more-more

‘More’ comes in many forms; but none as praise-worthy as He

Who keeps our gaze transfixed upon the Prize worth fighting for

The Prize worth striving for is veiled with time’s regale of days…

© Janet Martin

 Pressing Toward the Goal
…Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. 

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus. 

All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. 

And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well.…

Phil.3:13-15

 Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Isa.64:8

In Mindful Gratefulness

“and I thank Thee for each one of them” prays a sweet mother with dementia, for her family...

Sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night and cooks breakfast,

Every morning (whenever her morning might begin) she prays and reads her Bible though her mind is robbed of comprehension, others witness her faith nurtured by years of faithfulness…

When I contemplated what I might do by sheer routine and habit in the morning I decided,
 "yikes! I think I'd pour about 18 cups of coffee but forget to drink them!"
Definitely room for improvement and mothers like this remind us that Now really matters
...because collected Nows make a life!

Lord, let me live each day to day

In mindful gratefulness to Thee

And always thank you when I pray

For Hope and home and family

For every blessing you allow

Lord, let me credit it to You

And never overlook somehow

The honor of love’s humble due

Then, when the best of days are spent

And what we have is what we had

May we have learned to be content

And still find reason to be glad

© Janet Martin

A line from this message that made me hit replay...

"God allows us to be tested to do what?
to strengthen us, encourage us and help us to be able to endure;
not EVER to defeat us
but always to enable us to grow in our Christian life..."

To Miss Better-Late-Than-Never Spring

 Once again we are wowed by the wonder of it all!

'Do not I fill heaven and the earth? declares the Lord'

Jer.24:24

You come with flowers in your hair

A sunny smile upon your face

You plop into a grassy chair

Where you know that we save your place

You spill to hill and field and nook

The green we thought would never come

And all the jolly time you took

To getting here is forgiven

You unfold budded miracles

And steal our hearts (you always do)

The bird-breeze- brook-song canticle

Replaces bully gales that blew

Violet, crocus, daffodil

And plethora of petal-kin

Repeat their sweet-spring-flower thrill

To we who grin and grin and grin

...and welcome you with open arms

At last, it seems you heard us call

Where we fall fast into your charms

As if you were not late at all

© Janet Martin

Dawn-Dusk Is But The Husk Of It...

Dawn’s distant hills of soft-brushed blue

Its common thrills of chores to do

As mercy spills from you-know-Who

Is no trite enterprise

For in the wake and sleep of it

The Nothing we can keep of it

Is everything we reap of it

Where seed’s fruit never lies

Life’s love and laughter prize we crave

It sighs and cries and whys we brave

Are ties that bind all to the grave

Save the undying soul

Our present give and take of it

Is mostly what we make of it

The ecstasy and ache of it

The husk that cups The Goal

The can't and can and plant and plan 

The moment-measure of a man

The days and weeks and years that span

Twixt beginning and end

Is a four-season thoroughfare

Of bud-to-bloom-to-stem-stripped-bare

A dust-and-trust trekked praise-and-prayer

With which we must contend

Where want and woe and pomp and show

Goodbye-hello and hold-let-go

I-love-you-so and yes and no

Tamps, tromps time’s frail facade

As everyone who travels it

Soft-subtly unravels it

Until all that is left of it

Is handed back to God

© Janet Martin