Because Some Days We Miss and Happy New Year

 Take a bow

Here's to a year 

of making the most 

of Now and Here

this picture is my New Year's Tradition;

A picture of a greeting card my grandparents received many years ago.

 

Because some days we miss, it seems

A blip of busyness and dreams

Before they meld to misty reams

On sentimental seas

Because some days we miss so much

A perfect blend of taste and touch

That hastes through have and hold and such

Into fond memories

Oh, stippled stairs of hugs and prayers

Of love-you, miss-you, tugs and cares

Of tending-spending-mending flares

That fade on dusky west

To reignite upon the east

Because some days we miss the Feast

That begs the beauty from a beast

That roars with toil and test

….and teaches us the crucial art

Of life’s most elemental part

Love challenges both hand and heart

With hunger and hooray

And reminds us to humbly peer

Into the nimble Now and Here

Because some days we miss more, dear

After they slip away

© Janet Martin

  

And The Crowd Goes Wild

Sum of a Year

Wink-blink

Ope-close

Here it is

And there it goes!

Like mist that melts from morning’s verge

Like airborne-tides that ebb and surge

From dawn to dusk dust leaves its mark

Like sparks that spiral on the dark

As expectation’s hopeful cheer

Reflects upon a soldered year

Of heaven-tendered highs and lows

From its first scene to curtain close

The crowd goes wild, stands to applaud

The unwavering grace of God

Eyes fixed upon a mystic Door

Where nobody has been before

Where faith, not fear will be our Guide

For Love Unfailing will preside

Hallelujah.

Amen

© Janet Martin

Happy Last-day-of-2018!

a tender look back on what has been

 As humble hope hails Majesty

From a highway hinged to eternity

All cupped in the Ever-Able Hands

Of He who pours and snuffs time's sands 

 Jude 1:21
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

The One Thing We Can Always Choose; Response

Not gonna lie

Oh, some days I

Could fill the sky

With loud lament

But would good is

A tantrum’s hiss

But proof of this

Proud discontent

We cannot choose each circumstance

Only response to what it grants

© Janet Martin

Two examples of response from the Bible that always impact and humble me; 

one from the Old Testament...

Job Loses His Health

Then Job's wife said to him,

 “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

 He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. 

Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" 

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Job 2:9-10

...and one from the New

This is from the story of the angel coming to Mary,

 a young virgin, to tell her she will have a baby,

 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. 

 Luke 1:38

and, on the bright side, this piece of art was lying on the driveway this morning!

 

A Fine Intermingling

  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, 

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they? 

 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matt.6:26-27

 

The way flood waters rise and ebb leaving drenched aftermath

The way the wind will leave chaos in its riotous path

The way the sun will rise and set tinting the land and sea

And stealing our very breath amidst adversity

This is the way of love and life; Beauty and brokenness

A fine mingling of joy and strife and chosen happiness

Where fear will drive its victims mad but faith will set us free

Where hope will make our hunger gladder than doubt’s misery

Where what we cannot see ahead is like a tender dare

To trust in He who calms our dread and hears each humble prayer

This is the way of love and life; fine-mingled want and need

As we surrender He provides His strength to intercede

© Janet Martin

Ignorance is Bliss But It Won't Fix The Problem...

This morning as I blithely wrote about being gladder than we sometimes are 

 I was oblivious to the lake in the basement…

Last night I painted a poem about Midnight Rain(ha-ha, I even mentioned flood-gates😏)

 as it pelted the window and I couldn’t sleep
and I didn’t know then that the sump pump hose was clogged with ice
and Rain Poetry would lose its Romanticism in an instant,

 simply by going down to the freezer to take out a pound of ground beef for supper.

I went out for coffee/shopping with a friend
thinking the flood had been retained in the ‘old’ part of our basement,
not the rec room. I was wrong!

 (I've been researching how to paint cement-floors.
That idea is starting to sound very appealing😐)

I'm tired of 'let's lift the rug' game!

Because we cannot see into tomorrow we are free

To not borrow the 'sorrow' that is waiting yet to be

To not double our trouble by ‘what if’s’ futile distress

But take the day in hand and try to find its happiness

Tomorrow Today’s good or ill will compose yesterday

And who knows what is waiting to spill from time’s refilled tray

So by the grace of God we go, and if we let Him lead

He will provide at the right time, exactly what we need

 (in this case, mops, fans, a roaring mother, oops, I mean, fire;-)

© Janet Martin

So much for a cozy, Christmas-y room...

Oh well, then I remember those with real troubles.