Between Becoming and Became

It's been a whirlwind of special occasions and celebrations recently!

Convocation Ceremony

(proud parent-moment💗)

Congratulations, Victoria!

Below shot blurred for privacy sake; birthday celebrations

with two young men who used to be in my childcare💖

(photo courtesy of their mom/host)

Birthday Picnic with Grand-kiddos

to celebrate their mom's/our daughter's birthday

Missing all the fun is school-age brother!

He is counting the days to the end of June😂

Hello, new today! I sure wonder what wonders you will spill!

The earth is singing its heart out after a much needed rain!!

releasing/reviving petal-pleasure!

Gold melts away deep shadow-gray; today bursts into bloom...

Wow! a busy-dizzy morning has turned

what began as an early morning post into noon-post!!😅😘

Gold melts away deep shadow-gray; today bursts into bloom

A flower held while being felled; flickers of blush and blue

Soon to become part of a sum no finesse can exhume

As we collect what only retrospect has access to

…where how we love will always prove the measure of the heart

Where how we live will always give ‘reap what we sowed’ return

While what yet waits pushes at gates that only God can part

While we proceed where want and need will always feed and yearn

Hello, today! I hope, nay, pray as you slip out of reach

That, as you test our humble best with what yet waits to be

As Goodness grants a whole new chance to learn what you will teach

I pray that you will turn into a lovely memory

A flower felled while being held unravels rose and thorn

A rush of green tucked in between Becoming and Became

A twinkle in time’s eye, a sigh of summer-leaf soon borne

From overhead to gently wed with footfalls none can tame

© Janet Martin

1 Corinthians 10:31
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, 

do it all to the glory of God.

Ephesians 5:20
always giving thanks to God the Father for everything

 in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

pretty peony at my friend's house!

There Is No Other Place (in all the world so dear to me)

Yesterday evening we attended a hymn sing at our church;

*(click link then the Hymn Sing link)

an evening dedicated to opening the hymn books in the pews 

and singing with the accompaniment of piano and organ only, 

and four part harmony that seemed like it should have brought the house down!!

Awesome foretaste of Heaven!??😊

(* also, if you click on this link you will hear 

a young woman's heartfelt reasons for her love of hymns, 

You will be treated to some special features as well:

a violin solo, 

a men's quartet 

and an organ solo!!)

I love many new worship songs as well!

Below are a few of my 'newish' favs...

Goodness of God

All of our Tomorrows

Make Room

Is He Worthy?

Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me

Greater is He

Shadow of Shaddai (Psalm 91)

...but oh, these wonderful new songs can never entirely replace the old hymns

often inspired by great adversity and trial!

And, as one song leader stated, the older we grow,

and the more we experience

the more we identify with many of them!

Below, just a few of my personal favourite hymns...

We couldn't sing all of them last night;

(there are enough to fill eternity! hallelujah!!)

Hallelujah! What a Saviour

Rock of Ages

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Nearer My God to Thee

Be Thou My Vision

Wonderful Words of Life

Lead Me To Calvary

I've come to the conclusion that music is a bit like traveling;

The new songs are like visiting sights and places new to us,

and they fill us with awe

and worship for our Creator,

but the old songs are like coming home!

Like familiar faces, like arms outstretched in warm welcome

to home, sweet home

 that never grows old!

Before we sang Lead me to Calvary

The song leader asked 'have we been there?

He has and

there's no other place so dear!'

This comment inspired today's poem

***

There is no other place so dear in all the world to me

No other place can calm and cheer my soul, like Calvary

For there, beneath the bloodstained tree where pardon’s payment fell

There Jesus conquered death for me, and saved my soul from hell

There is no other place in all the world, to make me whole

No other place where grace unfurls hope’s anchor for the soul

Here blood-streams bridge the damning Fall that brought to Eden, shame

Here, Salvation is free to all who call upon His name

There is no other dearer place in all the world to me

I feel His blood drops on my face, I hear His dying plea

‘Father forgive, deliver,’ …the bloody sword falls; I cry

‘Father forgive’ redemption’s river gushes in reply

There is no other place as wonderful as Calvary

No other solace thwarts the pull of Jealous Enemy

As I behold the Conqueror that death could not destroy

As I behold my dear Saviour, I weep and sing for joy

…and press anew toward faith’s Prize I could never afford

So undeserved, its fortune lies beneath my bloodstained sword

And nothing in this world can ever be dearer to me

Than the place where grace was unfurled; the cross of Calvary

© Janet Martin

Earlier this past week I looked up and listened to this hymn below,

and couldn't help but weep! 

Once I was that lost sheep, but now I am found

At Calvary!

Still so many lost sheep though, right?!!

Let's not grow weary in praying!

The Ninety and Nine-Eddie Harrison

Luke 15:1-7

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.

 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, 

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 Then Jesus told them this parable:

 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. 

Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country 

and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. 

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says,

 ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 

7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven 

over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons 

who do not need to repent.

Awesome, Awesome Anchor

Lam.3:21-24

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope;

22 Because of the Lord’s great love 

we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, 

“The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

With renewed joy our eyes feast on the skies where this morning

the smoke haze has dissipated and we can see clouds!

Oh, the things we take for granted!

Lord, pray we never breeze over Thy bounty of blessings

that anchor the soul!

It crowns the cross of creature care with vision’s from above

It transforms Sense of Duty with the beauty of true love

It fuels faith and kindles prayer and makes our joy complete

It keeps eyes fixed upon a prize beyond time’s one-way street

It fits us with the armor that equips us for the fight

Into the darkest hour gleams its everlasting Light

From fear it gathers courage as it draws us from despair

To comforts us and cheers us in our trek from here to There

It conquers greed and fulfills need and helps love suffer long

It leads in paths of righteousness and feeds souls with its song

It awes us as we realize the cost God sacrificed

To keep us in His perfect peace; it is our hope, through Christ

© Janet Martin

Heb.6:18-20

Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, 

we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. 

It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 

20where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. 

He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

 1 Peter 1:3 ~ 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again 

to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Psalm 43:5

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? 

and why art thou disquieted within me?

 hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, 

who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 39:7

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.

Psalm 62:5

Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.

On Christ, The Solid Rock I Stand

June Love-song

This poem was inspired by a text I received from Jim (hubby)

this morning at 6:15 😍

Well, what better way to start the day

than a hymn extoling June and its Creator?!!

A lupine-appliqued blanket gloriously unfurled...

On gentle raindrop waltzes,...

(we are rain-jewel thirsty in southern Ontario!

This morning a few gems fell)

Your flower-pot-prettied porches,

(The blue pot from my sister for my birthday)💖

I love your bachelor-buttoned blue...

your peony-pink, oh...

I love to be breath-taken by fields, white with daisy-snow...

I love the way you wind your brooks through nooks and crooks of earth...

How each new day you toss a lure of pure June-happiness

To life’s care-laden thoroughfare, where awed wonder gives birth

To picnic-humble platitudes of joy and thankfulness...

…and frisky foals,

(below photo May, before the smoke haze was quite as dense as it is now)

This poem is a collection of delights from the first week of June

(except for 'the blue-sky afternoon!)

This year June-blue skies have been obliterated by smoky haze

due to many forest fires!

Our thoughts and prayers are with those directly affected

and esp. the many who are battling the blaze!

***

I love you, June. Ah, you must be the jewel in time’s crown

A lupine-appliqued blanket gloriously unfurled

A green pasture and still water tableau, hayfields, fresh mown

Each garden, like a bit of Eden in a broken world

I love you, June. Your early daybreak, and dusk’s lingering sigh

Your purple wild-phlox rivers pooled where highways run between

Your flower-pot-prettied porches, fledglings, learning to fly

I love your backdrop rich with every nameless shade of green

I love your bachelor-buttoned blue, your peony-pink, oh

And how each tree-top plays a perfect, leaf-lush hymn of praise

I love to be breath-taken by fields, white with daisy-snow

(Thank God, nature is oblivious to mankind’s godless/thoughtless ways)

I love the way you wind your brooks through nooks and crooks of earth

How each new day you toss a lure of pure June-happiness

To life’s care-laden thoroughfare, where awed wonder gives birth

To picnic-humble platitudes of joy and thankfulness

Thank-you God, for Your faithfulness where our faithfulness fails

Thank-you God, for your mercies and your Word to keep hope strong

Thank-you God, for the season that lavishes and regales

Long-barren breadth; your handiwork bursts into bloom and song

I love you June, the way you cheer a world with much amiss

You gild the lily-chalice with dew-diamonds, wonder sups

On gentle raindrop waltzes, on sweet, red strawberry kiss

On meadows, flaunting fleabane stars and yellow buttercups

…and frisky foals, and flocks of sheep; hollyhock sentinels

Wisteria-woven awning beneath blue-sky afternoon

And ageless Anne-of-Green-gable-like thrills where laughter swells

As a world full of kindred spirits sing, 'I love you, June'

...no one can copyright the beauty God alone bestows

Ah, June is like a showcase where masterpieces abound

To frameless canopies, where the Artist's brushstrokes compose

Roses and hummingbirds, sweet summer breaking holy ground 

© Janet Martin

Psalm 111:2

Great are the works of the LORD;

they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Do things ever give you a thrill?!!

Anne of Green Gables

To Get or to Receive...and a few other Thursday Thoughts

Happy, hope-full Thursday!

Hope-full no matter what!!

because of 

Whose Name we can call upon;

Jesus!

Acts 3:19-20

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,

 that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

 20 and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—

even Jesus.

***

What a peace each morning, to rest in the Giver's Hands 

whatever the day unfolds!

And when we ask of Him whatever He wills, 

then all we have we have received!!

When we neglect to ask, then all we have 

is simply what we get, 

minus the joy of the awareness of having received.

When we receive something

the receiving of it inspires thankfulness/praise

to the Giver!

***

If we ask, we receive

Otherwise we just ‘get’

The end result that ‘reach’ achieves

May seem the same, and yet

Though seizing of ‘the prize’

May share a common end

The ‘given’ and the ‘gotten’ guise

Are worlds apart, my friend

One works with wantful thought

One begins on its knees

Then, how we gained The Same Thing sought

Only the Giver sees

© Janet Martin

Have Thine Own Way, Lord

***

it is hard to store treasure

in heaven, 

while laying up treasure 

on earth

the measure to whom much 

is given

without heaven's store

bears no worth...

What will life be 

but a squandered

wonderful gift

groaned-grinned?

If, all we have gained

when plundered

is nothing but chaff

 on the wind

***

I'd Rather Have Jesus

***

rationalism,

spiritualism,

sensationalism,

oh my!

Lord, pray these never 

overpower the sway

of three little words

'here am I'

***

If all I had was what I give

Oh, would it be enough

To satisfy my mouth with bread

And my longing with love?

***

And this last one inspired by my husband 

who is a truckdriver and just left the scene of a fatal accident

moments ago

(a car crushed by a gravel truck)🙏😥💔

Our life is like a flower

That someday God will fell

...and of that day and hour

not one of us can tell

***

A Collection of Conclusions...

My apologies to early readers.

I didn't get a chance to proof read when I posted it this morning

It's quite a process really, the polishing of a poem

and granddaughter arrived just as I hit 'post'...

So to all the head-scratching as you tried to make sense of it all, thank-you!!😀

Today I turn 57! What??!! Already?! 😂💗🙏

I enjoyed the pleasure of this line in today's poem, yesterday💝

'A cuppa-tea is priceless when it comes with friends besides'

(...and to each friend on these photos, I am asking forgiveness instead of permission😅)

(a very special day. thank-you!💗)

I’ve come to the conclusion as the years accumulate

And we collect past’s landscapes in the hollow of the heart

That each day is fresh-laden with mercies to celebrate

Where we are always in the midst of love’s fresh works of art

And always, by God’s grace placed where He fits us for the part

I’ve come to the conclusion, contemplating life’s return

That being kind and patient is the best that we can do

For we all share in common the hurdles of live-and-learn

And we all need a helping hand to see us gently through

Where life’s fumbles and stumbles serve to humble me and you

I’ve come to the conclusion in the rise and fall of days

To dwell on grand illusions of happiness is to miss

The music of a very present harmony/melody that plays

Where voices touch and fade, where hellos harbour farewell’s kiss

Where none of us can keep for long the song simply called This

I’ve come to the conclusion as seasons cartwheel through clocks

That we cannot afford to waste the touch-and-taste time grants

Where the voice that speaks clearest is spoken in how one walks

Where every day runs rife with mercy’s Here’s-a-brand-new-chance

To love; now is that not enough to make us sing and dance

I’ve come to the conclusion that, for all that money buys

The way we expend moments is of greater benefit

A cuppa-tea is priceless when it comes with friends besides

And flowers brought to bedsides bloom best if we sit a bit

I’ve come to the conclusion life is what we make of it

We must choose joy or despair will crush us; we must choose hope

We must be willing to be willing to take change-of-plan-detours

And dream with meek awareness that God ordains yes and nope

And pay holy attention to the harvest death secures

(for everyone will meet He whose justice and love endures)

I’ve come to the conclusion that the tighter that we cling

To what no one can keep, is a futile struggle indeed

But rather every morning at God’s bedside knee, first bring

Life’s praise and sorrows to Him; there He restores the soul’s need

And helps us as we embark with Handful of Moment-seed

I've come to the conclusion (because we reap what we sow)

The older that I get, the more I am utterly awed

By morning's renewed mercy from the One who loves me so

Enough to keep on teaching me to trust His staff and rod 

And grandly glimpse with every breath, the smiling face of God  

© Janet Martin

Psalm 25:1-11

To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

2 O my God, I trust in You;

Let me not be ashamed;

Let not my enemies triumph over me.

3 Indeed, let no one who [a]waits on You be ashamed;

Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause.

4 Show me Your ways, O Lord;

Teach me Your paths.

5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me,

For You are the God of my salvation;

On You I wait all the day.

6 Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses,

For they are from of old.

7 Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions;

According to Your mercy remember me,

For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.

8 Good and upright is the Lord;

Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.

9 The humble He guides in justice,

And the humble He teaches His way.

10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth,

To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

11 For Your name’s sake, O Lord,

Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

Like a Dead Man Walking...

2 Chron.6:18

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.

When one lives, indifferent to and unaffected by such a God

as described in the verse above,

such an one is surely like a dead man walking💔😥

wild flowers...just one example of how

our Creator delights to delight us!

May we never live unaffected by our awesome God!

Unrepentant of rebellion, undelighted by God’s word

Unexcited about spending eternity with the Lord

Unattached to wonder’s wellspring surging from the hand of He

Who created earth and heavens with His sovereign ‘let there be’

Unmoved by mercy’s renewal, unawed by redemption’s flood

Unbowed by confounded humble awareness of Holy God

Unchanged by His grace and goodness, untouched by unfailing love

Unpersuaded by the power that can earth and heaven move

Unstirred by the pretty flower, by the songbird’s sanguine trills

By the beauty of a bower lavished with leaf-layered frills

Undevoted to His kindness, undefended by His Shield

Unaffected by thought-blindness unoffended by sin’s yield

Unguarded by angel-armies, untransformed by hope’s pure joy

Inattentive to heart-gardens of innocent girl and boy

Indifferent to the Shepherd, who, without counting the cost

Leaves the fold to search until He gathers the sheep that was lost

Unfamiliar with the Father and faith’s fellowship of prayer

Unappeased by Living Water’s promises beyond compare

Unimpressed by the true riches stored beyond time’s subtle haste

Preferring one that bewitches Want with instant touch and taste

Unaroused by utter worship to the Author of all things

Unamazed and uninspired by blessing each season brings

Unable to see the table that is groaning with a feast

Granted by He who is faithful from the greatest to the least

Unthankful, proud and unholy, unresponsive to the toll

That will strip Self of its boasting, leaving nothing but the Soul

Giving no glory and honor to God for the gift He gave

Living like a dead man walking but to wake up in hell’s grave

© Janet Martin

June Boon

June as always is brimming with nature's boon...

June tosses lures Peony-pure...

like peering into iris-trove...

...like lolling in arboretums

where hollyhock and clematis

and wisteria whisper, oh

like lingering in knee-deep drifts

of silver dandelion-snow...

like letting waves wash Want away...

...like twilight's slow release

June tosses lures Peony-pure

Delight. Backdrops of flawless hue

invite us to earth’s banquet room

of carpet green, and awning blue

to be honored partakers of

nature’s guiltless pleasure-buffet

like peering into iris-trove

like letting waves wash Want away

like sipping the sunny-sweet breeze

like honey-bees, heady with crumbs

of pollen sticking to our knees

like lolling in arboretums

where hollyhock and clematis

and wisteria whisper, oh

like lingering in knee-deep drifts

of silver dandelion-snow

like standing stock-still mesmerized

by ruby-throated hummingbird

like being agelessly surprised

by nature’s rhythms undeterred

like robin as it sings for rain

like midnight’s wildlife rendezvous

as gardeners start to complain

about what naughty rabbits do

where delights are the dearer, for

the verge where always troubles lurk

where June is like a troubadour

and toil can hardly be called ‘work’

where pools of shade, second to none

hail us for high-noon holiday

and the school-year is nearly done

where children shout hip-hip-hooray

and buses breathe sighs of relief

and drivers too; (do I hear ‘yes!’?)

where zephyrs tickle verdant leaf

that tickles hearts with happiness

where a communion-wafer moon

serenades twilight’s slow release

where heaven on earth must be June

and June must be Time’s Masterpiece

© Janet Martin

like standing stock-still mesmerized

by ruby-throated hummingbird...