Visions of Poetry

Thursday  August 27 2015  I WONDER WHAT HER STORY IS?

An unscheduled, unplanned day ahead, and who knows what can happen.  I hadn’t finalized any plans for today so I just went with the flow.  I had my grandsons with me and when I have my grandsons with me you can never know ahead of time which way the wind blows.  I knew I wanted to do some sort of adventure with them but didn’t really have confirmed plans as what to do.  There were some errands I needed to do but I knew it would not make them (especially the older one)  happy campers to know they had to go “SHOPPING”.  I truly believe Zachariah detests  shopping.  First of all he knows I cannot be coerced, begged, or pleaded into purchasing anything other than what I have on my list to buy.  I had a mission.  And they had to go along.  Zach was a bit sullen at first until I told them a little more as to what the day held.  First, we would take care of the necessities, which were errands for grandma.  The first errand being a trip to Target, short, but very boring to the boys.  We then stopped at a Goodwill Store to check out the toys. This was a much more exciting endeavor.  Zach found a “chapter” book he liked.  Xander found nothing on which to spend his two dollars.  The next trip was to the car dealership where I receive FREE car washes as long as I own my car.

The kids were very happy to go to the car wash because there was a T.V. to watch and free popcorn to eat.   After the car wash we stopped in at St. Vincent’s to check out their toy section.  Their toy selection was much more extensive.  The grandsons had so much fun trying out everything and how to spend their two dollars each.  They are savvy shoppers!  Grandma (me) taught them how to barter at garage sales.  You should see the good deals they get.  I encourage them to do all the talking and count out their money themselves to pay for their transactions.  It is amazing to see how much they have learned.  With a limited budget they are very deliberate in deciding what to buy.  They really want their money to work for them.  And Zach is pretty good at trying to get my money to work for him too.  He doesn’t miss an angle.

After the St. Vinney’s stop we drove to MacDonald’s and splurged!  I even had a chicken wrap.  I ate the chicken but not much of the white tortilla wrap.  While we were dining I noticed a young woman who came into MacDonalds and walked in and out a few times.  She caught my eye.  Young, very pretty, simply dressed with a baseball cap and a #1 shaved hair cut (I know that from experience).  As when I see anyone out in public my mind always makes a lot of assessments and judgments, intermingled with curiosity.  But there are only a few people who evoke the thought “I wish I knew their story”.  For this young woman my curiosity was intrigued.  I wondered who she was, what she was doing in MacDonald’s, why was she kept walking in and out of the door.  The look on her face was sad and lonely.  She was very attractive, but oh so sad looking.

The boys and I ate our late lunch, had a good time and then got up to go.  Then I noticed the same lady sitting at the table behind me.  Here was my chance to know the rest of the story of this lonesome figure whom I wondered about earlier. I looked her in the face and could tell there was something grieving her heart.  She looked so lost and hurt and even scared.  I asked the boys to sit back down and wait for me.  I turned around to the table behind me and asked her if she was okay.  She tried to shake her head yes and her head sort of went in a square nod and then shook out a “NO”.  Then the tears spilled over her eyes and I could see her heart was heavy.  I was about to hear her story, or at least a fragment of it.  And oh what a sad story.  Her story is the story of so many others lost in our nation.  I won’t go over our conversation in full because I asked her a lot of questions.  Instead, I’ll just give a synopsis of the answers and who she is.  I don’t fear that she will read this blog and I think her story bears being told.  I would never want to embarrass anyone by writing about them unknowingly.  I’ll call her Tarra.  Tarra is sixteen years old.  She is a heroine addict.  She has been drug free for two months, working a minimum wage job, living with a friend until today, when her friend kicked her out.  Tarra has been through rehab twice.  Her mother lives in Milwaukee and also had kicked her out.  Tarra has no money, no place to live, no transportation to work, and she was very frightened.  We talked awhile and I knew it was not an accident that I had met her.  I did not give her any identifying information of myself, not even my name.  I told her I would not give her money and she was emphatic that she did not want my money, but the fact I had stopped and talked to her, had done more for her than anything else could have.  I did tell her I would like to find some resources for her in the community and she offered me a cell phone number to call.  I told her I would call her tomorrow and meet her someplace public.  I spoke with my son who deals with such situations and he gave me several resources in the area that would be able to reach out and help her.  Tarra is a 16 year old high school dropout since the last two months of her Freshman year.  Were she going to school she would be starting her Junior year of high school.  We talked about that and the possibilities of going back to school.  Like I said, we discussed a lot of things in just a few moments.  I got up, went around the table and opened up my arms to her.  She walked into them, wrapping her thin arms around me so tightly like a lost and frightened toddler might do.  I prayed with her.  She told me that she had given her heart to Jesus two months ago and prays every day for sobriety to get through just that day.  She takes one day at a time regarding her sobriety and that is how she is getting through.

My son told me that the grip heroine takes on the body is an ongoing torment no matter how long you are drug free.  There is never a day that goes by that a heroin addict doesn’t have to fight the overwhelming craving of feeling so low and so dirty when they don’t have the drug in them.  It must be an awful fight.  I prayed for full release of this drug craving she was experiencing and prayed that she would know God so closely that she would feel like she was in His lap with His arms tightly around her.  Please join with me and pray for Tarra.  God knows her name, who she is, and all her pain. The Holy Spirit is fighting for her.  When someone comes on my radar like she did I know that God is pointing them out to me so I can pray over them.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to draw her closer to God during this great upheavel in her life.  Tarra is just one little lost 16 year old girl.  There are thousands of others just like her.  I saw them all over the country on my travels, sleeping in alley ways, on sidewalks of downtowns, and probably places I couldn’t even see.  My heart broke every time I looked into their eyes and read the hopelessness that looked back at me.  I actually cannot get some of the images out of my visual memory.  Perhaps it is God’s way of reminding me to pray for those people.  Such young lives wasted.

I asked Tarra what she thought I could do for her?  That’s when she told me that what I had already done by just showing concern and speaking with her was the greatest thing I could have done.  She said she wished she had a mentor.  I asked her what role would a mentor be in her life?   She responded that a mentor was just someone to talk to.  That’s when I told her I would call her tomorrow.  Please pray for me that if it be God’s will for me to be involved any further than I already am, that God would confirm it in my heart.  Please pray for Tarra’s protection and for my protection as well.  Pray that God will give me wisdom in this matter.  My heart is sad for all the Tarras there are on the streets of our country this very night.

I WONDER WHAT HER STORY IS?

By Kathleen Martens

August 27, 2015

Oh God, I am so thankful

That at a very young age

My heart was turned to you

And it wasn’t just a phase.

Somehow I was protected

From following worldly sin,

Drugs, and alcohol,

And all that could have been.

But so many others

Quagmired in worldly death

Even their days are dark

As evil steals their breath.

So many young, floundering.

And who is it, hears their cry?

And so many are perishing

And others longing to die.

What would you do Lord

If you were in my place?

How do I help another’s pain

When they run such an evil race.

For it truly is evil forces

That overshadows their life,

And there seems no way out

Of such a place of strife.

What can I do Father

To help the hurting lost?

What can I do dear Lord

When I know you paid the cost?

Speak Your wisdom into my heart

Show me each day how to live

For it is Your will I choose to do

And Your love I desire to give.

My part may very well be

A very small part indeed.

But whatever it is I am to do

Your direction I desire to  heed.

Oh, how I wish I could help Tarra.

I don’t mean to leave you with a melancholy story, but believed Tarra was part of my day today for a reason.  Perhaps if it will allow even one other person to open their heart toward the lost and suffering it will have been worth writing.  Your prayers over me are cherished.

It is late, the boys are gone, the house is quiet (too quiet), my body is tired, my thinking is over.  I’ll close now, though I have ever so much more to say.  I hope you have a good night’s sleep in a safe and comfortable bed and are surrounded by people around you that love you and whom you love.  For that is what truly makes us rich!

Good night!

P.S.  It is now Friday morning.  My husband read my blog above this morning and informed me it needed to be redone.  It was too late last night when I wrote it.  The above blog is the overhauled version.  I hope it makes better sense this morning than it did last night when I went to bed.  I just hope no one has read it yet.

Wednesday  August 26, 2015  DESIGNS OF INCREDIBLE WONDER

As my regular readers know, my husband and I have been given the gift of two wonderful days with our two grandsons (who find us quite boring at times).  Today was one of those wonderful days.  Our friends, Sherrie and David, brought their identical twin grandsons (mirror twins) to meet us at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.  Olbrich is truly a beautiful garden, a combination of God’s miraculous creation and man’s artistic eye.  Whoever designs the flower bed of this garden is very talented.  When walking through the gardens it’s as if you are in many different gardens.  I have a few pictures I plan to upload on the site before I publish the blog.  Some are pictures of leaves that I thought were exquisite, others to show off some of the flower bed arrangements and others to show off my grandkids.

Some of the photos I plan to share were taken with my Iphone camera lens up against a kaleidoscope viewer looking down into a bowl of a variety of plants on a turntable.  If the turntable was turning it looked like a moving living kaleidoscope in action.  I took some of the photos through the viewer with the bowl of plants still.  I will put a few of them on the blog.  I also took some photos with my phone video camera and caught some unbelievable moving kaleidoscope designs of incredible wonder.

DESIGNS OF INCREDIBLE WONDER

By Kathleen Martens

August 26, 2015

No design is greater

Than what God has created.

Beauty of such splendor

Keeps my soul elated.

A simple flower fashioned

By God’s spoken command,

Unduplicated by man’s effort,

Through all time withstands.

Only God’s magnificence

Can create perfect attire

Such as what grows in a garden,

Year after year untired.

One little blossom

Expands itself untold.

The mystery of a tiny seed,

A marvel God unfolds.

The earth so full of wonder

Exquisite, delicate, fine.

A plan so meticulous

That man can’t cross the line.

So when my eyes behold

A gorgeous little flower,

It’s as if I’ve seen a miracle

And my faith renewed with power.

No thing quite as wondrous

As to view God’s amazing art.

Not only pleasing to the eye,

But sustenance to my heart.

I love it when my poems just come like the one above.  I hope you enjoy my walk in the garden today through this poem.

My friends grandsons are Ali and Yusuph.  Yusuph looked up at his grandma while we were walking in the garden and said “it takes three things for a flower to live, WATER, SUNSHINE, AND LOVE”.  Only a five year old has such beautiful wisdom.

We had a beautiful wonderful day and a great big meltdown when we arrived home.  Xander fell asleep in the car.  It was dinnertime and we did not want him sleeping through dinner and then staying up until midnight, so we got him out of the car and “helped” him wake up.  He was not a happy camper.  He did finally calm down, ate a reasonable amount of dinner and has been his sweet little self since then.  This is the first time he has ever had a meltdown when he has been here, and we know most of it was our cause due to waking a tired baby (3 year old) up from a perfectly wonderful nap.  This is movie time and is always like the greatest treat that could ever be.  And…to top it off, they have the promise of a fruit smoothie for snack before going to bed!  It will be Banana, coconut water, small amount of yogurt, and strawberries.  They will also eat a big hunk of peanut butter (my Amish kind ground fresh from honey roasted peanuts) to go with the fruit smoothie.  It is Zach’s favorite!  It makes for good kids with a promise like that to look forward to.  OH THE POWER OF WORDS!

Again I will repeat what I wrote in one of my recent blogs, God is so wise in designing young women to be the mothers of young children.  When someone asks me if I have any children, I enjoy answering, “No, I have no children, just two adults”.  I love having adults!  It took a long time to get them there. (Actually I now have “middle aged” adults”.  Eee-gads)!

Dave is gone on his Wednesday night ministry meeting.  The boys are showered and settled in the living room enjoying the video, and I am here in the sun room writing my blog, half listening to what is going on in the adjacent room.  I can see both the T.V. and the boys from where I sit.  I do not want you to think I am being neglectful.  I may be older, but I still know the shenanigans of little kids.  And…the eyes in the back of my head are still in working order!

Tomorrow their mom and dad will pick them up!!!!!  I plan to have soup and salad and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  Tomorrow is also food delivery day so I know it will be a busy Thursday.  And Friday…I, no make that we, COLLAPSE!  We’ve already decided not to attend what we thought we might go to tomorrow night.  What’s that old saying, that “when you get old your back goes out more than you do”!

I thank God for a perfectly delightful day.  I hope all of you took time out today  to do something you enjoy doing.  I absolutely love gardens and it made it extra fun to see it through the eyes of little people.  Zach wants to go back tomorrow.  Who knows, maybe we will.

Good night.