grace

Being the beloved

/ Joy Lenton / 15 Comments

being the beloved PJ pin

Our insecure hearts seek signs of belonging.

Our minds ache for reassurance.

Our bodies seek to express love to others.

And when I am held in my beloved’s embrace, the inner turmoil melts away.

Concerns may sit heavy but they become lighter for being shared silently.

As he reaches for me I feel wanted, loved, cherished, accepted just as I am.

I can finally be fully myself with this man who knows me so well, who has partnered me for almost 40 years.

Words become unnecessary as we lean into one another. We speak each other’s language now.

Marriage made us as one and we remain so, even as life’s challenges and painful circumstances have tried to pull us apart.

Troubles are shared with kisses. Joy is magnified in the melding, in the overcoming, in the giving and receiving.

And in these heart to heart, soul to soul embraces we are reminded of the way God is continually holding us safe and pouring His unconditional love out upon us.

Because this love of ours has been sustained solely by His grace, nurtured by holy fire, stuck fast by faith.

We love because He first loves us. He is our pattern and example. The glue in this marriage.

And His arms of love never grow weary. We will always be welcome there.

God rejoices when we learn how to accept His love and live in the knowledge of being the beloved.

Arms of Love

Arms of love encircle me

holding secure and steady

as I finally exhale, release

breathe soft and calm

feeling prepared and ready

to accept and believe

hear and receive

that as beloved arms

encompass round

God’s Spirit hovers

without a sound, yet

speaking things He wants

to urgently impart

into the very depths

of my insecure heart

saying, “You are safe; you are loved

You are beautiful; you are enough

You are free – just trust in me”

©JoyLenton2014

love WoJ + PJ

Youth blooms eternal

/ Joy Lenton / 8 Comments

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Music speaks into the air.

We sway soft, holding one another close, watching years roll away.

Laughter erupts and we collapse onto the sofa.

I sit on his knee and we kiss.

I see a gleam in the eyes of this man I’ve known and loved since forever.

Youth blooms eternal in a heart that loves. Age is no barrier.

We warm ourselves by its fire, persuade its embers into life again, coax the coals.

Others pay attention, attracted like moth to flame, desiring the heat of it.

Although our human love is but a poor, pale shadow of God’s love, it glows with hint and suggestion of His radiance.

Hearts hungry for love sense a longing echoing in their own souls.

And as my beloved and I come closer toward a significant wedding anniversary, we do so with humble gratitude, awe and wonder.

Because this love we’ve been given, shared soul deep, fought hard to retain over years of fears and tears, has survived against the odds and never lost its fire and fervour.

So I make no apology for posting about love this month as I reflect on the gift we’ve been given and the years shared.

Here’s the first small offering… a potential poem for my forthcoming anthology?.. You can decide.

Watching Muse
We’re watching Muse on the TV
our voices joining in
with the melody
in our own idiosyncratic
cracked and rusty way
And it doesn’t matter that
I’m applying your Parkinson patch
as we dance clumsily as one
or that I sway uneasily
on these weak, arthritic knees
What matters is the unleashed
joy as giggles erupt free
and we clutch one another
in imperfect harmony
with a youthful abandon
and familiar, ancient ease
©JoyLenton2015

couple dancing

Aim at heaven

/ Joy Lenton / 2 Comments

Aim at heaven - CS Lewis pin

Reality and truth are hard to define. We all live with shifting perspectives, objectives and definitions.

Circumstances cloud our judgement. Pain makes us doubt what we thought we knew before.

Life constantly remoulds our thinking, stretches our boundaries.

We sense we are born for more than earthly striving. Our gaze begins to rise heavenwards.

Where can we turn for wisdom? Who will guide us into Truth?

What if we really believed what the Bible says, about how Truth is a person and not an idea?

Jesus came that we might have life in abundance as we place our faith and trust in Him.

He alone can fully answer the questioning soul’s concerns because He brings truth and reality as seen from God’s perspective.

Here, we see in part, understand but a little, comprehend only a fraction of what is taught and revealed, given and received.

We aim at heaven and get earth thrown in, but we still live with mystery into eternity.

So we grow in faith, life and maturity and learn to live into the answers to come.

And we finally become satisfied in the not knowing of all our heart desires to understand.

Because this we do know… we are deeply, unconditionally loved, here for a purpose beyond the present, brought into relationship with God, and able to trust Him in the silence and the dark as well as in the light.

‘Reality’

The greatest reality is seen in divinity

The essence of all that is and exists

Expressions in every place

providing glimpses of grace

A revealing and concealing combined

An unfurling in hearts over time

Whispered sounds down corridors

of years, and roar of waterfalls

echoing in our ears

We see and sense Him all around

Because God is eager to be found

Dark valley-life with heaviness of cloud

acts like a muffler and a shroud

Each storm sends us to our knees

where we offer up our earnest pleas

Our reality too rocky to bear

until we sense Him drawing near

Offering faith-filled walk on water

to every drowning son and daughter

©JoyLenton2015 

Linking here with Barbie at The Weekend Brew where soul refreshment is being served. Come and join us?

reality poem pin

Gifts of grace

/ Joy Lenton / 6 Comments

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Day by day we are writing out our story, a living tale of all that takes place and a living testimony of God’s sustaining grace.

A birthing can occur at any moment in hearts receptive to the new and the next and the in-between.

What seems dead can be enlivened and resurrected by His power – brokenness made whole, beauty brought forth from ashes.

Although many days are shrouded and clouded by painful circumstances, God is still writing out His good and greater narrative into the margins of our lives.

Yes, even as we hover crazy-busy on this edge of space, time and eternity and so often fail to see or sense His continual presence.

We need to remember how we live and breathe and have our being in Him and He lives and breathes in us by His Spirit.

Nothing is incidental, or irredeemable. Nothing is forever lost or wasted.

All is gift and all is grace, but we need eyes to see the sacred in the secular and appreciate its daily nuances.

As we listen closer to our lives we begin to piece together the story they are telling us.

Such thoughts are shaping my daily living and making their way into today’s Five Minute Friday poem.

Grace gifts

Each day we are alive is a gift,

an unfurling, unfolding kernel

mirrored in tender bud and leaf,

so our hearts remain hopeful

of seeing a good ending

I long above all to recapture

a sense of child-like wonder,

become captivated, entranced

by delight seeded within

as this daily sacred dance begins

Each moment we linger longer

to appreciate The Moment

will help peel back layers

to reveal a gift of grace,

open our eyes, blinded by

cultural excess, dulled by stress

and wearied by naysayers

For we are the revealers

unwrapping the Gift of God,

the Truth-sayers, the Way-sharers,

keepers of Light and Love who

employ a deeper discerning

as we dive expectant into the true,

hopeful, bright-blue waters of each day

©JoyLenton2015

I’m blessed to be joining in with the wonderful writing-free-from-the-heart community of ‘Five Minute Friday’ writers over at Kate Motaung’s place as we give our best on the topic of ‘Gift’. You’re very welcome to join in. Do hop on over and check out the other posts there. It’s amazing what a rich variety of thought is stirred by a one word prompt!

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Looking and finding

/ Joy Lenton / 11 Comments

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‘Looking and finding’

I look for the face of Christ

Now obscured by a cloud of unknowing,

a veil of uncertainty

a mist of missed moments

Grey cobweb coating distorts

all sense of His Presence

I grope blind for the grace of Christ

Now shadowed by seeds of doubt,

a complacency about the commonplace,

a turning away sigh, a dull

grey ache nothing else can

subdue, erase or ever replace

I see and sense Him everywhere

Now as the babe in the manger

An infant Christ-child, an innocent

A mild man bleeding wild-red on a cross

A risen Saviour overcoming

all pain, all sorrow, all loss

I find traces of His face

in every man, woman and child

Though it is seen the most

in those who love Him most of all

His grace, beauty, mercy and charity

reflected imperfectly ~ in you and me

©JoyLenton2015

“In Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognised by those on the way of salvation – an aroma redolent with life..” ~ 2 Corinthians 2:15 – The Message

looking and finding PJ pin

Learning to release

/ Joy Lenton / 14 Comments

balloon ~ i will rise file image

Days go by and we feel strangely heavy, our souls saturated, weighed down to ground.

Sometimes it’s hard to put our finger on why we are so lethargic and laden.

Sometimes we fail to see what burdens we are carrying, accustomed as we are to their presence.

Sometimes it takes a final filling, a last straw load to tip us over.

And a whispered reminder from Holy Spirit.

He calls soft across the shadows of our mind, His voice gaining urgency to alert our attention.

He warns us we are already full to overflowing in the way we so often try to live life unaided by His grace.

And He speaks wisdom to our spirit. A voice we know yet seldom heed in our pursuit of more, of enough, of extra stuff.

We receive a gentle reminder of Who is our Burden-bearer and how He stands ready to catch us when we falter and fall.

A call to relinquish, let go, release, relax our tight grip on it all.

Stop… Pause… Breathe… Pray.

A call to pursue God, yield to grace, be filled with Holy Spirit gifts rather than heavy with worldly worries and cares.

Because living lightly and freely is God’s plan for you and me.

Releasing

You surround me like ocean undertow

But I don’t see Your sacred sea

when my eyes are fixed to ground

picking up problem-pebbles in my hand

I examine each and every one

Note each mark, each line and scar

Reluctant to release them

even though my hands overflow

Then I hear a whisper on the wind

calling across the ripples

of my troubled mind

An invitation to let go

Focus my gaze on You alone

instead of holding on to sharp

stones biting into skin

My fingers slowly uncurl

Feeling strangely vacant, light

Watching mesmerised

as each pebble thuds hard

into the sand, until I am

left with empty, open hands

reaching out to You ~ unfurled

©JoyLenton2015

“Casting the whole of your care (all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all) on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully” ~ 1 Peter 5:7

pebbles release poem pin

Love came

/ Joy Lenton / Leave a comment

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‘Love came’

Love does not shout its name

Though the cross is a megaphone

to rouse a deaf world

Love is likened to a rose

as it gradually unfurls

Releasing its scent into the air

fragrancing the atmosphere

Lightening the hearts of all

who inhale its heart

and are in its thrall

Love whispers soft in dreams

Causing a swift awakening

It seems ethereal as mist

and lingers long

like a wanton kiss

Betrayal may bring it out

when deep feelings inside

emerging as anger, surge

from one to another

Love came and gave its all

to a world still sleeping

With a hammering and a bleeding

seal stamped on wood

Nailing itself to those unheeding

who could turn a blind eye

to a tearing in their sky

Love may have seemed to disappear

But it stayed in all hearts

who welcomed it here

©JoyLenton2015

Love came PJ file image

A sea change season

/ Joy Lenton / Leave a comment

bird at blakeney quay - PJ file

The bird sitting proud on its perch looked down loftily, maybe wondering at the peculiarity of human beings.

I leant on my stick and breathed in sea air. Gulped greedily as if I was drowning, starved of oxygen.

And maybe I was. Drowning for a difference, starving for more than the life I’d been living, desperate for change.

Needing to exhale out the old and breathe deep of the new.

Too many days spent captive in the house. Bound by weakness, sickness and weariness for months on end.

I was starving for the light outside. Feeling freedom calling in my veins. My soul ached for ocean but I’d settle for sea or even a riverside view.

I wanted to wend my way to water, feel sea breeze and feel alive again. Do you ever get that feeling?

It isn’t necessary to have chronic illness to experience moments of feeling confined and constrained by circumstances.

To have a longing to break free from our normality. Live life with deeper awareness and passion.

And I’m discovering the best sort of freedom is sensed inwardly, when we know we are loved by God and can live and love freely ourselves because He lives within.

Now, a healing of sorts had enabled me to tread into new territory. A gift of grace equipping me to step outside the house at last.

So I was able to sample the delights of Blakeney Quay on my beloved’s birthday last month. I hope the photographs I took will offer a taste of the quay for you too if you also yearn for water.

‘By still waters’

blakeney quay sea - PJ file

If you go down to the quay today

and lift your eyes a while,

you may slowly gaze at snake of sea

threading its fine ribbon of blue

through swathes of soft shoreline

where its held fast at bay

And if you linger long enough,

you’ll hear a siren-song

of gulls wheeling their way clear of land

and sea as they lift free

with a hue and cry, barreling high

toward vast stretch of sky

But boats lie idling, still as statues

on the sand, apart from

a brave few out on far horizon

Bobbing with will of wind

Resisting lure of land and going

wherever love sends them

©JoyLenton2015

boats beached at blakeney quay - PJ file

beauty of blakeney collage - PJ

Being cloistered

/ Joy Lenton / 2 Comments

cloistered file image PJ

‘Cloistered’

Impatient, busy feet

cross the street from sunlight

to shade, preferring dark

in the shadowed cloisters

of their barren heart

They do not see You, still

and patient in their midst

Nor catch the uttered cry

light as butterfly wings

that sings into the air

already thick with Your words

Blind eyes and stone insides

remain mute to their touch

What will it take to make

a world awaken to

the wonder and glory of You?

©JoyLenton2015

Dear Father,

As the storms of life arise,

may we be cloistered within

your heart, kept safe and

sheltered within the calm blue

sea of your grace, held fast and

secure by the anchor of your

love and tethered to you by

faith and trust in Jesus

Christ our Lord

Amen

Friends, I’ve been cloistered inside for a few weeks, needing a time set aside for necessary recuperation and rest. And I want to say how much I appreciate your kind thoughts, comments and prayers as I’ve been recovering some energy.

I’m slowly discovering there’s no safer place to be than in the shadow of God’s wings. May you also find the help, support and comfort you need during your own seasons of withdrawing unto Him.

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty (Whose power no foe can withstand). I will say of the Lord, He is my God; on Him I lean and rely and in Him I (confidently) trust!” ~ Psalm 91:1-2 (Amplified) 

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A many splendid thing

/ Joy Lenton / 4 Comments

love is PJ poem file pin

‘Love is..’

A tearing apart of heart and soul

as two together make a whole.

Fire, fight, steam and bluster,

the tenderest words that we can muster

Raw, wounded vulnerability,

liberation and setting free

Becoming united for better or worse,

celebrating our beloved in verse

Forgiving, forgiving, and forgiving again

as hearts weigh heavy with sorrow and pain

Keeping one another in cosy company

for there’s no other place we’d rather be

Living, laughing and crying as one,

wonder and hope in a morning sun

A hand to hold on a chilly day,

soothing when things don’t go our way

Our companion throughout the night,

deep reassurance it will be all right

Growing, maturing, ageing together,

surviving all kinds of stormy weather

God’s best gift to fallen humanity,

our anchor, safe place we long to be

Smiles and cuddles, a warm embrace,

a thing of beauty ~ by God’s grace

©JoyLenton2014

“We love because he first loved us” ~ 1 John 4:19

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