While We're On The Topic...of Farewell

Enjoying some memory-trails today...
partly cause part of my family that is also part of the East-family
is counting down the day/hours to plane boarding time only a month after our visit. Sweet!
 I'm sending a bushel of hugs 'cause they don't cost extra to carry on the flight

One highlight of the trip was a tour of the local highlights
by  'locals' who could give us lots of history as well😄

...on the Acadians

Blomidon Provincial Park(the above and below photos taken on/from their, (our driver's) farm)

view from the dikes and 'field-roads...second to none!
Thank-you to the driver who graciously  slo-o-o-w-ed,
even backed up so Mrs. Shutterbug in the back seat could get her shot!😀

The Look Off

Evangeline Beach

Baxter Harbour??...I think   (might need correction from 'the locals':)

The beach atScott's Bay is all smooth stones...Of course I snared a few!

Hall's Harbour...Fishing boat waiting for high tide!

...around Grand Pre
Farewell's are inevitable, but often not until they've created fond remembrances!

I don't like farewells much

Where touch from touch is sheared

Where 'hello' is the harbinger

To echo-worlds endeared

I don't like farewells much

Its poem pieces fall

Where salty signatures of love

Makes mothers of us all

I don't like farewells much

Incumbent curtain-close

That falls across Time's such-and-such

To what, God only knows

I don't like farewells much

They tug at hearts, but oh

They teach us to treasure The Touch

Before the Letting Go

Soon stars will dot the roof

That blots the blazing west

Where fond farewells are loving proof

That we have known life's best

© Janet Martin

I wrote this poem after driving away from our beloved 'East Family'.

Love 'em all so much so

Thus,

Miss 'em all so much!

I told Jim about this post when I called him tonight and he said,
Yeah, I wish we had more time there, or actually no, we had just the right amount because you should always leave while you wish you had more time rather than staying until you're saying,
'man, am I tired of this!'
haha!! always takes a man to straighten out a woman's sentimentality, right?!

As If...No Time Has Passed At All

For Jesus-followers, as hard as farewells are, 

we have a bond that goes beyond miles right through eternity!

There is nothing in this world like the bond between fellow-believers!

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Cor. 13

Never enough time with those we love!
I was going to do this post way before a month passed but...
you know how it is; the days feel twice as short, it seems, since we're back,
 catching up on fall work and adjusting to a new child-care routine!

I have a lot of thought-hugs (aka prayer:) for this gal (an old neighbor) since visiting a month ago!

And when we meet each other, sisters in The Faith, it's as if no time has passed at all...

This gal had a huge welcome' sitting on our counter and in the fridge when we got in...

 (in a  house lent to us for our east-family visit) by its owner-angel we have never met!

I cherish the face to face moments we had...almost a month ago already?!!

...and some moment are nice immortalized in poem!

A few people have asked how many poems my East-trip-visit inspired
and my answer is always the same...I don't know yet!

I was thinking as I cleaned a mundane lunch mess, 

about where we were a month ago and how nice it was to just sort of pick up where we left off...

..to a heart-neighbour (not an old neighbour:)

...As if our children had not grown

taller than she or I

where year on year has softly flown

into That Big Oh My

as if a couple thousand miles

did not exist twixt Touch

so then hugs drowned in teary smiles

Don't hurt us quite so much

as if, deep down we try not to

dwell on the Big Fat When

of days-weeks-months, a year or two

until we meet again

as if her house was next to mine

or not far down the street

we say with Confidence Divine

farewell until we meet

Janet Martin

A Hellish Thought!

 Imagine if we had to plead our case

Before Almighty God

and prove that we deserved the pardon

Purchased through Jesus' shed blood

Imagine if He never said

Whoever believeth in Me

Imagine if Mercy was dead

what dread each hell-bound day would be

I faded in and out of an old black and white movie yesterday while trying to sleep off a fever...

In the movie You Can't Take It With You a tenant who was about to be evicted
by a greedy business tycoon/landlord came to plead for mercy
but as he stood before the wealthy landlord the trembling man was speechless.
When his landlord roared 'what do you want?!" the man replied

 'I came to ask for mercy but now I can't think of a single reason why I deserve it!'

Imagine if this was the day

God took his mercy-gifts away

And we would wake to realize

There was no Ear for human cries

No light to wake the day with gold

No promise of a Hand to hold

No death-defeated glory-goal

No hope for man’s undying soul

No Love, for God is love, and He

Through Mercy, loves us faithfully

(for if we had to plead our case

Not one could merit Mercy’s grace)

Because all of us know full well

Without mercy, we deserve hell

The heart, desperately wicked, yes

Full of deceit and selfishness

And no one yet has walked this earth

Who was redeemed by one’s own worth

Oh, if the love of God withdrew

The Mercy that saves me and you

What awful dread each day would be

Exercised in futility

Imagine if this was the day

God took redemption’s seal away

Imagine if, for just an hour

God turned His back, withheld His Pow’r

Imagine if we could not wake

And after we had ceased to shake

All we could do is scream and scream

Because it was not ‘just a dream’

Imagine it; then does it stir

Thankfulness meeker and humbler

And does it make us overjoyed

To think on Mercy, never void

To help us do the best we can

To love God first, then fellowman

© Janet Martin

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. 

It is by grace you have been saved!

Eph.2:4-5

Because of Mercy I can sing this song at the top of my lungs!

Of Mostly Innocence and Curls...(or In the Training of our Smallest Soul-diers)

Lately conversation sometimes turns to those not so cute moments 

that the cutest among us can 'throw'!

It takes a lot of patience, prayer and time to train our little Soul-diers!

(the classes that create wise moms and dads are not without pain
and humbling that comes through stumbling)

 Mr Mostly-Innocence-and-curls has no idea 

how the 'news' on the board beside him will impact his life😀

How vital this command;  

Train up a child in the way he should go: 

and when he is old, he will not depart from it

Prov.22:6.

(Photos by Emily Curry, Mr. Mostly Innocent's mom)

Once we were all small boys and girls

And mostly-innocence-and-curls

But, then the signs began to show

When comprehending the word ‘no’

Soft as the lilt of leaf that swirls

Grows mostly-innocence-and-curls

Til mom and daddy feel the tug

…ah, baby needs more than just ‘hug’

What test-of-will shrill shriek unfurls

From mostly-innocence-and-curls

And what great negligence is wrought

If  Little Child is left untaught

More precious than diamonds and pearls

Is mostly-innocence-and-curls

The treasure of love’s sigh and pain

So worth each try and try-again

For love cherishes boys and girls

Of mostly-innocence-and-curls

It takes the time to reprimand

And train the mind that moves the hand

So when it seems so hard to do

And patience needs another ‘you’

Remember soon time's hand un-twirls

The innocence from mostly-curls

© Janet Martin

Do You Hear It?

Listen, the shriek of blue-jay cries

Listen, implores the leaf that lies

Where summer swept the earth and then

Let autumn have its way again

Listen, intones the wind that moans

Across frost fields and cobblestones

Listen, the plume pleads with bowed head

As earth with death of bloom is wed

Listen, beckons the barren tree

Listen, cautions the stricken lea

Listen, the sound of silence swells

And seeps to winnowed woods and dells

Listen, the wide world seems to wail

Listen, to nature’s parable

Listen, to what The Psalmist says

About the sum of mankind’s days

Listen, the shriek of blue-jay cries

Listen, implores the leaf that lies

Beneath the skies where winds cajole

The dust-to-dust of all but Soul

Listen, ah, can you hear the tear
As dark is rent by first light's air
Listen, ah, can you hear the toll
Of all that passes...but the Soul

© Janet Martin

 For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass— 

he blooms like a flower of the field;

when the wind has passed over, it vanishes,

 and its place remembers it no more.

Psalm 103:14-16 

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, 

but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; 

 the grass withers and the flowers fall

  but the word of the Lord stands forever.” 

And this is the word that was proclaimed to you.

1 Peter 1:23-25