Spring-song

Speak to me in floral sonnets

Sing, oh joyous feathered throng

Nurture me with rippling oceans

Where the pasture leaps with song

Brush your lips across my temple

Zephyr who has known no care

Warm me, sun-beam, with your candor

Stir in me a summer-prayer

Wrap me in your emerald whisper

Cradle me in your embrace

Dance with me on God’s fresh garden

Metaphor of hope and grace

Pleasure me, jasmine and primrose

Starlight gleaming in the dirt

Kiss me, tender sanguine noon-tide

Banish from my thought life’s hurt

Soothe me, periwinkle twilight

Breathe your vesper on hushed sod

Springtime, nature’s quadrille-darling

Spring, a testament of God

© Janet Martin

Liebster Award

Thank-you Sara @ purpleinportland, for a nomination of the Liebster Award.(love the name...may I say Ich Liebe dich:) I am so happy to pass it on.

The award isn’t voted on by any kind of committee; instead, it is passed from one blogger to another, to recognize fellow bloggers...

 Now that you have been nominated it is your responsibility to:

1. link back to who nominated you
2. nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 follows (see below)
3. let nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites; and
4. add the award image to your site

Here are my nominations: To blogs I read and writer's I so appreciate and admire...

Inspirational Daily


In The Corner of my Eye

Metaphors and Smiles 

The Happy Amateur 

Vanyieck's Last Stand

Universal Plea...

Love me…not for who you wish that I would be

But love me because it is enough that I am me

Love me…not because of some grand and virtuous deed

But because love is within us, a never-ending need

Love me…just as I am without criticism or complaint

But simply because I am me, love without restraint

Love me…not for what you hope is yet to be

But simply in this moment, because you are you and I am me

Love me…in spite of everything that I am not

Love me, not in forced action but in the out-pouring of thought

Love me…not for who you wish that I would be

But just because you are you and I am me

© Janet Martin

No Condemnation

Failure with cold, heartless judgments

Raises an angry fist

Its sentence of horror is certain

With my name at the top of the list

For beneath every accusation

Is written a verdict of guilt

But hark; there is no condemnation

For those washed in Holy Blood spilt

Grace…what a blessed assurance

I cannot fathom its breadth

Without it my feeble endurance

Would daily be swallowed in death

Failure with all of its judgment

Would haunt in demonic flood

But God who is rich in mercy

Has banished my guilt with His blood

Often I falter and stumble

But He who has pardoned my sin

Will never leave or forsake me

And thus His peace whispers within

For there is no condemnation

To those who are saved by His grace

Who will reject such salvation

Or shun redemption’s embrace?

Failure with all of its judgment

Raises an angry fist

Justice pronounces its sentence

But hark; what message is this?

There is therefore no condemnation

To those who are in Christ

My heart over-flows with thanksgiving

For love’s redeeming sacrifice

© Janet Martin

Romans 8:1

Love...

Image Source: turnbacktogod.com
 

Love…such a heavy load to carry

We should give it away

Love…a pair of well-worn shoes

Because second miles can be unpredictably long

Love…a beautiful picture

But so unlike anything we visualized

Love…we give it as a gift

And never remind the recipient of the cost

Love…refined by fire

Treasure the melting-pot

Love…a race with no finish-line

Quitting is not an option

Love…never a weapon to inflict pain

But a faithful shield

Love…patient and kind

A glimpse of God revealed

© Janet Martin

Love: 1Cor. 13

Authentic Belief

When morning nudges through the dark

To break on virgin shores

May I resolve to trust in God

And ask for nothing more

Then as the new day rises up

To test the thoughts I pray

May His love be my true response

And not just words I say

When sunlight melts in golden bars

Through every shutter-crease

May His soft whisper stir my heart

And fill the day with peace

© Janet Martin

The kids laughed and asked if I rhymed on purpose...'what do you mean? I asked as I said amen,...oh, you rhymed when you finished the prayer with 'may you truly be our Guide today and not just empty words we say'I laughed, 'no, I did not realize that it rhymed'...and out the door they went to school while Mother prayed that oh, somewhere through-out the day they would remember.

Gain

When the blanks that we call ‘tomorrow’

Have been filled in with the past

When its allotment of joy and sorrow

Are nothing but dim shadows cast

When wisdom has offered her virtue

And proven in us who we were

…a student of world-class knowledge

Or a scholar bound for higher shores

…when the temporal treasure we gather

Returns to its birthplace of dust

Because nothing in this world is worthy

To be transported with us

When we exhale our parting

And exit this transient plain

Will we know that we are not dying

As Heaven becomes our gain?

© Janet Martin

Spring Symphony

Allegro of sunbeam dapples the slope

Where winter has gentled its stance

The gale now softens her harsh calliope

As nature responds to its glance

Warm, eager fingertips strum rigid spires

Rousing the bud from its sleep

As umber fallow surges with desire

Embraced in a dark, restless deep

Subtle adagio breathes on the sod

Earth trembles as its naked shell

Responds to the Maestro, Creator, God

For no man His music can quell

And into the crypt of buried decay

Heaven’s wondrous melody seeps

As from entombed chambers of yesterday

Resurrected choruses leap

Pure intonations of violet and gold

Of periwinkle, magenta, blue

Rippling with passionate abandon bold

Across earth’s dormant avenue

Emerald rhapsody covers the hills

Woodland and meadow reply

Sweeping the landscape its harmony thrills

Humble, dust-formed passers-by

© Janet Martin

It seems as if, over-night the landscape has erupted into exotic bloom.