Moved By the Music...Birthday Musings

Life's best besides motherhood...gramma-hood!
When they come to visit my cup of joy is full!

I feel oh so humbly and thoroughly blessed

Each birthday, a gift from the One who gives Best

So dear God, I thank-you for what your hand lends

For beautiful blessing of fam’ly and friends

As oft, when the not-so-soft winds of change blow

They keep joy’s flame gleaming with love’s tender glow

So help me touch kindly the moments that fly

Soon set on sealed pages of ages gone by

My, my, what a twinkle a year has become

Each season like stanzas in life’s sacred sum

My, my, what a momentous measure is this

Soft-tucked between rise-‘n-shine and goodnight kiss

Let me live the moment lest I miss the bloom

Lest I miss the music that fills Now’s ballroom

Lord, let me live like This is all there might be

To splash wild the paint of  almost-memory

To revere the ripples that rush out of reach

To learn from the lessons that Time tries to teach

© Janet Martin

 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

Slant of Light or June Song...

A slant of light enchants our sight and draws our hearts to what we see

Where wonder wakes a thund’rous ache stirred by time’s new reality

The birth of blooms unearths the rooms we rush toward with bud-bred yen

As green ignites the keen delights of artist’s brush and poet’s pen

The brook that curves through nooks that serve up Satisfaction’s finest fare

Tosses a lure across the pure, unsullied sweep of sun-sweet air

It snares the string that bears the sting that weaves itself through what we’ve lost

And draws us to the awesome view of leaves on trees and lilac-frost

The norms we craved while storms engraved their signatures on icy panes

Burst on the scene in virgin green, crowning daydreams with daisy chains

As sanguine boon of May and June thrills us like Christmas Eve’s first snow

Hope is unfurled, Joy to the world spills from bells pink, purple, yellow

Morning is like a brand new bike we ride into the set of sun

The trails we blaze washed in a haze of happiness, long-winter won

Where summer beams like silver streams and bare feet dash along its banks

Where slant of light enchants our sight and fills our hearts with holy thanks

© Janet Martin

Lord, Help Us Learn To Be Content...

 I'm feeling blissfully content this morning after dreaming that in an extra-generous spurt I offered to lend our home to a neighbour and her family while we rented an old farm-house down the road.

Hastily we bid good-bye to the house and garden and moved our things out as they moved in.

 But as the dust settled I stood in a strange stained-wall-papered room not being able to recall why I thought this was an exciting idea;

we paying rent while I was willing to give our house for free, 

and suddenly I wondered anxiously how I was going to explain this hasty move to hubby 

when he got home!

I woke as I was staring out through an old storm-window wishing for nothing but this; 

I just want to go back home to our old place!

With what we’re lent, Lord, help us be content and not to pine

For what we hold soon fades and falls like flowers from a vine

The beckoning of dawn is soon the reckoning of dusk

The zephyr, warm and giddy blazes trails to gales cold-brusque

Therefore with what we have we ought to learn to be content

The Past is like an urn that cups the ash of seasons spent/moments lent

In flickers ripe with life that sweep from east to westward bars

A wink upon a brink where pink dissolves in ink-set stars

As ebb and flow of highs and low kisses and scars our reach

Lord, help us learn to be content in what Your love would teach

© Janet Martin

(and remembering Normandy/D-day)

 

He who has little and wants less is richer

than he who has much and wants more.

It's not how much we have,

but how much we enjoy that

makes happiness

~Charles Spurgeon~

Because Actions Speak Louder Than Words...

Spending time with those we love is one of life's greatest gifts!

(grandson is so pleased as he receives permission to blow Grandpa's candles)

If you say that love me

Yet never look my way

Or hold my hand or lend an ear

To what I have to say

…if you say that you love me

But balk if I should ask

For you to change your plans a bit

And help me with some task

If you say that you love me

Just once a week or less

By sitting at my table

Dressed up in your polished best

…if you say that you love me

But never choose to spend

An extra hour hanging out

Because I’m your best friend

If you say that you love me

But my love-letters lie

Forgotten, undesired

As life's days and years rush by

  

If you say that you love me

...and vow it verily

Why is it that you spare so

Little time to be with me

Love, God

© Janet Martin

Ephesians 2:4-5  
But God, being rich in mercy, 
because of the great love with which he loved us,
 even when we were dead in our trespasses, 
made us alive together with Christ— 
by grace you have been saved.

The Compensation of Time's Toll

James 4:14
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! 

What is your life? 

You are a mist that appears for a little while 

and then vanishes.
 

The compensation of time’s toll is more than we can see

The culmination of a goal beyond dawn’s destiny

The clock beneath our skin is winding down with ev’ry breath

And no one knows but He who put it there, how near is death

Our numbered days are like a little haze upon earth’s banks

Before we meet the Lord in horror’s tear or humble thanks

Salvation saves the soul; but first belief must break doubt’s bars

The merit of The Whole is not some splash among the stars

Where fantasy unfolds whatever outcome we prefer

The Word of God is Truth; there is but One Deliverer

And someday ev’ry knee will bow and ev’ry tongue confess

That Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords, He is our Righteousness

The good we do we could not, save for He who loves us so

The curse of sin is not something that we imagine, no

Ignorance screams its nonsense while wisdom cries in the streets

And keens sacred awareness for what ev’rybody meets

After this blip of Being that is but the trip toward

The Awesome, everlasting Supremacy of the Lord

This is no laughing matter, love; no matter what ‘they’ say

This life is like a little mist before it fades away

Then pray we do not underestimate Heaven or hell

Or the breadth of eternity that thought can never spell

The narrow way, the Only Way is fixed upon His Word

And does not lead astray the one whose hope is in the Lord

The destination of the Soul is all that really counts

The window-dressings of this world may dazzle with fine flounce

But there is not an ounce of worth in merchandised façade

This earth and all therein belongs to He who made it; God

Our basket of belongings that we prize with puffed out chest

Cannot survive death’s chilling knife or cheer the grave’s cold nest

The compensation of Time’s toll should wring our hearts with prayer

The culmination of its goal unfolds more than thin air

And pinpoints the Sensation of Something for more than this

That begs an explanation bigger than what mere man is

Where numbered days are winding down the clock beneath our skin

Until the Sacred Soul-goal when Forever will begin

Objection cannot change God’s mind; He grants the right to choose

Choice is the tie that binds mankind  to consequence’s dues

Then, how can we escape if we refuse the love of He

Who made a way through death and hell for all humanity

…ere compensation of Time’s toll roars like a mighty wave

As the force of eternity rolls across the grave

© Janet Martin

Inspired in part by our past Sunday morning message

(sorry about the static in some parts but still so worth the listen!)