Precursor to the Prize

Sometimes it rouses great concern 

At treacherous trends being set...

when the downward slope is so gradual

That it doesn't seem too serious... yet

The single step may seem harmless

but each step will always precede

Another, and we should be wary

of where given Time, they will lead

 There is a way which seems right to a man,

 But its end is the way of death.

Prov.14:12

The price precedes the payoff

The grit precedes the goal

Desire precedes the destiny

Where death unveils the whole

Then, friend do not grow weary

The climb precedes the view

And faith precedes the finish line

Where all will be made new

Reaching precedes the holding
And pride precedes the fall
Planting precedes the harvest, love
(ah, seeds do not stay small!)

The hurt precedes the healing

The bud precedes the rose

And cross precedes the crown that waits

After Time’s curtain close

The want precedes the getting

The prayer precedes the peace

And trust in God precedes the day

When need of it will cease

© Janet Martin

Daughters...

 Happy Birthday, Emily💓!

God bless you, dear daughter, as you begin raising one of your own

and discovering the joy for yourself...

There aren't enough pages to tell the whole of what daughters are but here's a peek!

This poem goes for all three of our beautiful daughters
but inspired today on the Birthday of our firstborn;
 the one who introduced me to a whole new world of wonder!
Can't wait to walk with you through your own journey of discovery💗

I can't BELIEVE it's 27 years since it began!

They’ll give you wrinkles laugh-lines

They’ll turn your head hoary

They’ll teach you lessons

You once thought you knew

They'll make years fly by

As love writes a story

Of bittersweet blessings
 Our mothers learned too 

They’ll make you weary

And make life worth living

They’ll make you prayerful

And careful and brave

They’ll make you teary

While stunned with thanksgiving

They'll make you grateful

To give all you have
 

They’ll make you feel older

And younger than ever

They'll try you then break you 

With laughter unfurled

So while you can, hold her

And hug her, dear mother

For daughters will make you

The best friends in the world

© Janet Martin

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~