Then You Will Fly

PAD Challenge day 15; For today’s prompt, write a prediction poem.

 For the sake of what might be...try!

(that's what I tell myself when fear-demons jeer, sneer and leer) 

Fear will paralyze the Poem

Close your eyes and feel the Light

Let the Author of ink-oceans

Fit the Fledgling for the flight

Trust a leap of faith to paper

Bear the dare to share the art

Sometimes the pen is a saber

Carving courage from the heart

Steal the breath of death’s bystander

Seal this tender touch of time

With the tempo of tamed banter

Into mementos of rhyme

Beauty begs for recognition  

Brush the bruises from your sigh

Brave the height of inhibition

To know what it is to fly

© Janet Martin

There Will Be Better Days...

Half-way point! PAD Challenge day 15; For today’s prompt, write a prediction poem.

Sometimes, as I witness someone suffering far more than I ever have it almost feels like

I'm trespassing on sacred ground to offer inexperienced words of comfort and cheer

but we are here to "encourage one another and build each other up"

 ... we never know when it will be our turn to receive those words instead of give!

Today I am thinking of my cousin Wayne (and family) 

as Wayne suffers terribly from the ravages of MS.

 He watched the family-sale mentioned in the previous post 

from the confines of his wheelchair in a van.

Many stopped to say it's nice to see him there, one mentioning this trial must take much surrender.

 His reply, the most powerful two words: "every day" and though his voice and body are weak from the disease in that moment I knew I was looking at one of the strongest people I will ever meet!

 A testament to the verse

" ...for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."  

2 Cor.12:10

So this poem (unfit as I am to pen it) comes from the bottom of my heart

 for him and his family today! Will you join in praying for them as God's will is done?

There will be better days

For some, not here below

But if we put our faith in God

We know it will be so

After time's hard-knock blows

After Surrender's Test

Those who endure will hear these words

Well done, enter thy rest

Take heart, though laughter fails

And words seem far too small

The One to whom our prayers are raised

Sees even sparrows fall

...are we not more than these?

Take heart, trust in the Lord

The testing of our faith; hard joy

Will yield a rich reward

So while we suffer long

Toward Hope's unmet Yet

There will be better days, dear one

Though sometimes we forget

© Janet Martin

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? 

Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care.

Matt.10:29 

 
Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns--

and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Wise To Be Wary...

Yesterday I was at my Uncle’s auction sale…a bittersweet day for the family
as Things rich with memories find new families and homes.
Such is the way of our earthly possessions, right?
Uncle is excited to be living with his daughter in their home now,
but two rooms simply cannot house the things that filled a whole home before.
Now the dishes on which many meals were served and shared,
 (so commonplace in the moment)
pass through the auctioneers hands then to the highest bidder,
 so too tables and chairs, beds, appliances, etc, til all of it is claimed, collected and carted off,
as Dear Uncle who bid his wife final earthly farewell a few years ago
parts with another piece of life; their retirement home and the things they touched. 

No wonder, there were tears. 

A sympathetic relative offered comfort with these words.
“It’s good to try to remember these are only earthly things.
We are looking forward to something much better!”

Still, those heart tugs are earthly and oh, so real! 

 Pictured Below...

my 'keepsakes' from Uncle Abner and Aunt Almeda

While in the thick of love’s hustle and bustle

While in the quick of its kick and cajole

Wise to be wary of mere moment’s muscle

Deftly undoing the strings round the soul

While in the middle of having and holding

Balancing Maybe/Baby with long to-do lists

Wise to be wary of Fingers unfolding

Farewells like flowers the Hour untwists

While in the throes of love’s wild woe and wonder

While in the training of dear girl and boy

Wise to be wary of what waits near-yonder

Past this succession of sorrow and joy

While we clasp hands that cannot weather dying

Basking in tasks while ‘unwrapping the gift’

Wise to be wary of whispers untying

Bonds that seem commonplace before death’s rift

While Time works subtle, inevitable changes

Carving its art with an ethereal knife

Wise to be wary of that which estranges

All but the echoes from rooms full of life

© Janet Martin

 My keepsakes in their for-now spots

 ...for those who wondered what I would do with my 'treasures'.

 a New writing chair... 

(and move-around-the-house-to-wherever-we-need-it-chair)

 While Victoria decides if she wants this dresser...it's mine😀

(in the laundry-room entrance)

 ...the auctioneer looked around for a one dollar bid on this plant-stand, so I did😀

 this stand has so much potential; this is its first tilt-the-head-does-it-look-okay trial!

(if nothing else it will be something new for tots to undo😁)

Eccles.3:1-6

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away...

Had to think of the passage above and the song below...

A Palm Sunday (and every day) Song of Praise

 

 I was blessed to be part of the kids Sunday School lesson today,as the eyes of young and old 

turned to the form of The King of kings riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

The Story Leader told how many thought this could not be the King or Messiah because surely the King of the Jews would not come on a donkey!

 She went on to remind us that in life, when what we hope for doesn't look like we thought it would

 it is good to remember that God/Love has a far bigger, better plan in place

than we can know through what we see in the present!

Sing to the Lord, praise Him, infants and children

Sing to the Lord, young and old, weak and strong

Sing to the Lord, every tribe, every nation

Worship the God of salvation with song

Worship the One who does not hold against us

The awful penalty for our sin

Sending His Son Jesus, perfect and blameless

Love gave His life so that death would not win

Sing to the Lord, rich and poor, wise and simple

Sing to Lord for the gift of His Son

Worship the King, fill His flesh and blood temple

With glad thanksgiving for what He has done

Law cannot change it, time cannot erase it

Once and for all Jesus rose from the dead

Sing to the Lord and let nothing replace it

Lest God forbid, the stones cry out instead

Sing to the Lord of lords, sing to the King of kings

Sing to the author of mercy and grace

Worship the One who loves us more than anything

And thus gave Himself to be death in our place

Worship the One through Whom sin is forgiven

Worship the One who has saved us from hell

Worship the One true God of earth and Heaven

Worship the One too wonderful to tell

Sing to the Lord, Praise Him, infants and children

Sing to the Lord, Young and old, weak and strong

Sing to the Lord, every tribe, every nation

Worship the God of salvation with song

© Janet Martin

Luke 19:36-40
 As He rode along, the people spread their cloaks on the road.
And as He approached the descent from the Mount of Olives,
the whole multitude of disciples began to praise God joyfully
in a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”b

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”c

But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples!”

“I tell you,” He answered, “if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.”

 

In Spite of Viewpoints and Points of View

 PAD Challenge day 13: For today’s prompt, write a view poem

"When I grow up I'm going to live in the countryside"

declared an ecstatic four-year-old, delighted with his point of view

Our views are shaped by what we see

What we are taught, or not

The dynamics of family

The status of our lot

The things we have, the things we lack

The wars we win and lose

What we believe, twixt white and black

The attitudes we choose

Where side by side the whole world wide

In all we see and do

More than city or countryside

Will shape our points of view

For all the differences twixt

Creed, culture, class and breed

Still keeps our flesh-and-blood-forms fixed

In universal need

…of food and water’s sustenance

Where Hunger carves its hole

Of love and respect’s reverence

To feed the heart and soul

© Janet Martin