Summer To-do List (lest we miss it!)

Drink in the songs of summer

The sigh of where zephyr blows

The teal cajole of waves that roll

From skylines to our toes

Ah, feast your eyes on flowers

A colourful buffet

That spills its art from earth to heart

In a most perfect way

Linger longer in gardens

Be florally content

For soon Time’s way will have its say

In blooms withered and spent

Harvest a host of echoes

To tenderly retrace

After gold-green has lost its sheen

And silver takes its place

Pour second cups of laughter

Beneath leaf-canopy

Let happiness dissolve our stress

For what must be will be 

Bask in beauty with boldness

And humble gratitude

That God so lent a season bent

With Mother Nature's brood

Absorb gorgeous sun-sparkles

Before it is too late

Get close enough to catch the Love

Climbing trellis and gate

...and feel life's friendly welcome

Greet us like next of kin

Where flowers nod and we sense God

Walking somewhere therein

© Janet Martin  

Common Bond-age

We all have a cuppa sorrow

Harbour hungers, hurts and fears

No one knows what waits tomorrow

To arouse laughter or tears

We all feel that vexing yearning

Complex to articulate

We are all still always learning

Learn to listen, learn to wait

We all hold a world within us

From whence hopes and dreams beseech

While the flail of seasons winnows

Times and places from our reach

We all sense the verge of progress

That is out of our control

But we also all have access

To the Keeper of the soul

…who sees wounds and longs to bind them

In whose presence abides peace

Pray then that we seek and find Him

Before grace withdraws its lease

We all have a cuppa sorrow

Battlegrounds no one can see

Save the One who holds tomorrow

With Supreme Authority

Not one of us is forgotten

God so loved the world that he

Gave His Son, Jesus begotten

To redeem humanity

So, though life is full of hurtles

And the sufferings of dust

We all instilled with Immortal

Have a God that we can trust

© Janet Martin

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.

Matt.11:28

I Heard My First Cricket of Summer Today...

 Cricket-stages waiting to be filled with invisible minstrels...

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me a little sad

For these are the minstrels that chirp-chirp away

The beautiful summer we had

I heard the first cricket of summer today

It tugged at my heart with its call

Knowing its rhythmic backdrop will play

Until the frost-chill of the fall

I heard my first cricket of summer today

Plaintive soloist, but not long

For soon a whole hidden cricket choir will play

August and September’s earth-song

Aha, close your eyes; can't you feel the skies lower

Balladeer rousing both teardrop and grin 

 Drawing its bow over heart-strings and clover

Velvet vibrato from a black violin

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me both sad and glad

To know that the crickets did not lose their way

And will play till ‘the summer we had’

© Janet Martin

To Incognito Athletes...

 My cousin Wayne, (mentioned here) 46 years old and bed/chair ridden 

because of MS and the loss of part of a leg in a farm accident,

 is one of the most valiant 'athletes'

I have ever met!

Also, another one of my faithful readers
is suffering immensely because of a fall 6 weeks ago and now some added complications!
She was admitted to the hospital last night and is feel physically and emotionally at her limit!
Will you pray for Jan R., for healing, strength and encouragement?

Will you pray that they (and we) may be faithful

in the fight to the finish! 

Because no one can predict who will cross the finish line first!!!

Philippians 3:14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize 

of God's heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

Failure and success are like competitors in a race

And it is hard to tell sometimes which side the favor lies

We tend to measure success by position or by pace

But the One at the finish line sees beneath its disguise

I’ve seen a shadow of a man put ‘better men’ to shame

Humility is something that collects no accolades

But rather gives full credit to a Greater Worthy Name

Knowing our time on earth is like a bloom that quickly fades

I’ve watched one bedridden yet beating ‘great athletes’ by smiles

Surrender is a hard fought thing until we fully yield

And it is not always the one who boasts the most in miles

But he who knows that soon the inner man will be revealed

 

Failure and success are not always what they may appear

The road we see runs through a veil that ends the wend of Time

Beyond the slope where hope vies with the sigh of now and here

To the Reward after the race and its arduous climb

Not all who run will win a Prize; then pray and pray and pray

Lest we become distracted by the way faith’s rivals run

And test the spirit lest by decoys we are drawn away

And miss the most beautiful prize of these two words ‘well done’

© Janet Martin

...and then today's devotion fit right in to the topic!!