Part of a Plan

Oh, who am I that God would grant

Again, into my erring grip

The essence of faith’s fellowship

Where I am prone to weep, ‘I can’t’

Ah yes, I am part of a plan

That proves the grace whereby I go

Allowing more than sight can show

So I must cling to God’s ‘I can’’

© Janet Martin

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? 

If God is for us, who can be against us?
 Rom.8:31

 

Purposed Recognition

Oh, I should never want to be

Absorbed with living’s this and that

Lest what is right in front of me

Falls heedless through perception’s cracks

And I should never care to pine

Gazing to skyline’s in my thought

Missing what Love has tendered mine

While hungering for what is not

Else I might miss morn’s mercy glow

Like laughter lighting heaven’s eyes

Or how its light, like hope-beams flow

Through crevices in weighted skies

or then perhaps I would forget

To touch and hold and taste and see

The beauty of love’s preciousness

And life’s awesome fragility

We cannot choose love’s higher dues

Of when or what God gives and takes

We ought to cherish gifted hues

Before their blue in Bygone breaks

Moments transpire, volatile

Soft Seraphim of dust-to- dust

Lord, teach us how to recognize

Your gifts in mercies that shape trust

 Janet Martin

On Heart-holds and the Flipside of Hello

I'm glad hearts hold more than arms

for they are big enough 

to enfold and hold forever

those we dearly love

A few things happened this week-end to make me realize how thankful I am that hearts hold what arms can't!

You don’t want to go

I know

The tug-of-war twixt hearts can take

Our breath away

And leave us feeling

The full impact of love’s ache

I don’t want to go,

You know

Farewell is hard, our hearts and eyes

Brim with the

Overflowing measure

Of love’s bittersweet goodbyes

We don’t want to go

But we know

Nothing lasts forever so

We embrace, kiss faces

Knowing

Hearts never really let go

© Janet Martin

This Little While We Tended

When day is done

And all its fragments garnered

Into Past’s steadfast, Ever-cast repose

Its battles won

Or lost until tomorrow

When day is done what will dusk’s gates enclose?

When grief and joy

In sudden, strange encounters

Steals our breath or laughter’s lilting zest

What epitaphs

Will engrave twilight’s tombstone

Where daily deaths of bygone ages rest?

When day is done

And all its laymen slum’bring

As This and That by eventide’s side falls

When we dismantle

High-noon’s steel-fist struggling

To rest awhile ‘neath moonlight’s silver shawl

...where pink and gold

Folds Time’s fast-fading fortune

Into a Thing that no one can undo

Will it be worth

The little While we tended

When day is done and our life is through?

© Janet Martin

Through Jesus Christ

(We sang this song and it was a glimpse of Heaven)

We gathered from different cultures, countries, customs and languages united in the One word we understood; Jesus. Oh, what a glorious worship time we had yesterday with fellow-believers from Iran, Turkey, and other various countries they moved through before arriving in Canada, some only very recently!
When we sang it felt like the roof  dissolved and heaven came down...it was Awesome!

Though mortal mercy fails

And human need despairs

Look, look, for grace, a boundless grail 

Pours through the sinner's prayers

Then let our spirits soar

And let our praises ring

Through Jesus Christ,we find the More

For our hungering

Salvation's enemy

Employs its emptiness

Look, look, One satisfies our plea

With holy happiness

Let all His Name applaud

Sin's debt has been repealed

Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Earth's nations can be healed

Though pious sacrament

To idols are inept

Look, look upon the Testament

Of every promise kept

...and let our song proclaim

The righteousness we craved

Through Jesus Christ, the only Name

Whereby we can be saved

Janet Martin

Still, Above it All...

 Still, like May-green's subtle weaning...

Still, beneath Time’s rushing edict

Light and darkness ebb and flow

Like green hills soft-resurrected

From the fields of ice and snow

Still, within life’s wheeling, dealing

Give and taking high and low

Like a spool of string unrav'ling

Seamless seasons come and go

Still, amidst the grieving-leaving

-letting go; love’s sweetest pain

Tireless, time’s hand is weaving

That which cannot be again

Still, like May-green’s subtle weaning

Still, like roses in June’s smile

Still, like ending’s new beginning

Spills the willingness of While

Still, above it all the Giver

Of life’s ever-ebbing vim

Draws each arrow from His quiver

Surely, surely back to Him

 ©Janet Martin