Sometimes You Say I've Changed...

Jim and I are approaching our birthdays-season,kindling tender reflection.Jim is entering a new decade on Saturday💓🙏 Once upon a time our parents were parents of little children,then, they became parents of adult children,Then they became parents of adult children with little childrenNow they are parents of adult children with adult children who are raising the next generation of little children...and so it goes.Nothing and no one stays the same for long!Best to embrace the place/grace we are in,for where one season is,another is waiting to beas long as life remains! I am completely content in the season I am in,not because everything is perfect but becausethere are enough joys to balance the heartaches.Thank-you, Lord! Spending time with our childrenand grandchildren is one of life's blessed joys, in the season Jim and I are in. I love how helping to plant potatoes made Grand-kiddos feel happy, important and valued...(the 'taking turns' rule kept it lively, with always someone trying to sneak in two 'turns' in a row 😂)We had eight rows planted in next to no time at all!Good times 💖 And great opportunity to live out this passage: Deut. 6:5-9And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.  And you shall teach them diligently to your children (or grandchildren)and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, (or work in the garden)when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. *** I love how the soft soil beneath their bare feet made them giddy with delight I love how they still all love gramma's lap 💝 I love when they can have some one on one grandpa time (while gramma cleans up supper dishes) I love having  special reasons to bake... Sometimes you say I’ve changed, and in a sense, I guess it’s trueTime changes things and I suppose it changes people tooBecause perspective, with experience is apt to shiftThe older that we grow the more we see life as a gift The older that we grow the more we care about todayBecause we’ve come to know how swift each day-gift slips awayTo the permanent residence where centuries amassWhere everything that comes along is just as bound to pass Where circumstance has always dealt both life’s better and worstWhere stepping stones to wisdom often felt like failure firstWhere what we learned has earned a gentler, beholden regardBecause the way to learning it, was often slow and hard Honing what we admire and desire and respectAnd opening our eyes to joys we no longer neglectAs we begin to see without a shadow of a doubtThe certainties that younger people seldom think about Where threescore year and ten or four was for far older cronesBefore we looked time in the mirror and felt it in our bonesAdmitting with aha, that time’s dexterous sleight of handIs more adept than any trick vain mortal can command Sometimes you say I’ve changed; far sadder to remain untaughtAfter a lifetime leased to learn to love the way we oughtAfter day after day of grace, by mercy’s Hand arrangedForbid the best that we can boast is that we never changed © Janet Martin Ps.90:12Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.