Life's Laurels

I have one daughter who on more than one occasion has commented to me, ‘how can you stand it! (My life)’

She looks at me and thinks ‘what have you ever really done , and how do you still get excited about it?!”

If we are blessed, life grants a holy repetition of that which we are called to…I don’t always get excited about the idea of more laundry or cleaning etc. But the Love that gives life meaning excites me every time.

I love this quote by Eric Liddel:

“In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.”

If one has done one’s best, my friend,

Regardless of the dividend

Then time is not some hapless falling

As each creature care we tend

But a most high and holy calling

To an intermediate end

…for at the end of days, my dear

Begins what we should full revere

The very cause of all we do

Will in that sacred Then appear

Thus by this fact we ought to view

Time’s mission with love’s moral fear

Then, if we do the best we can

To serve, not self, but fellowman

By this we serve our God who gave

Each one a purpose in His plan

For we are all servant or slave

The grave but death’s dust-charlatan

© Janet Martin

Today's 'best' includes preserving peaches:)!

Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 2 Cor. 5:10

As All Things Go...

When hills are crowned with gold where once green held our eager gaze

When picnic-afternoons we dreamed about hold yesterdays

When harvest-hymns abound in sounds of toil and thankfulness

And flower-heads grow heavy with the spoil of morrow’s tress

When dusk is like a cloak that draws its blue across the air

Then falls across earth’s shoulders as the moon climbs heaven’s stair

When cricket song trills all day long and first leaves strew the walk

When bumbling bees go tumbling from zinnia to hollyhock

When hours becomes treasured like a prize we cannot keep

As each becomes the measure of the sighs we smile and weep

When we sweep petals from the porch and pluck fruit from the vine

And pause a little longer in the preciousness of time

When we have felled its moments, smelled its rose and held its tear

Oh, then we know as all things go that summer’s end is near

© Janet Martin

Beneath It All

In life’s uncertainties,

when I close my eyes

and envision His nail-scarred hands

beneath each situation

it helps me trust…

Beneath the ebb and flow of hold-let-go, the stilly sweep

Of moments, days and years that pass into that long, last deep

Beneath Uncertainty and all we cannot know or see

The hands that bore the nails abide to carry you and me

I want for naught but to remember what I easily forget

That, though I have no answers God, our God is faithful yet

Beneath life’s laughter-tear-faith-fear Unknown I'm glad to know

The hands that bore the nails abide and never let us go

© Janet Martin

By The Grace of Him

When I my own sad state survey

Knowing the heart that God can see

Then all that I can think to say

Is, ‘thank-you God, for saving me

 ...and in this race of birth to death

For which there is no trial run

I owe nothing, save every breath

To thank God for what He has done

Our God is merciful and kind

He sent his Son to pay sin’s price

Not leaving it to us to find

By works or blood, a sacrifice

So now, all I can think to give

To prove to Him my gratitude

Is this; each moment that I live

An offering of servitude

The love of God will never fail

In life, in death, we need not fear

Since Time began He tips the grail

Of faithfulness to each one here

And as a new day spills to fill

The place of yesterdays, we know

The God of old is with us still

And by the grace of Him we go

© Janet Martin

Aren't you glad it is by grace, not works we are saved, lest any man should boast? Eph.2:8-9

Aren't you glad God never leaves or forsakes us? Deut. 31:6   Heb.13:5 

Aren't you glad His promises are sure? Deut.7:9  

Aren't you glad no matter who we are, and no matter what we do, if we do it for Him it is enough? 

Matt. 10:42

Sometimes, In My Smallest Smallness

 I chuckled as I saw myself in him...

so many apples within reach but he wanted the one w-a-a-a-y up there!

Sometimes in my smallest smallness

I think that I would rather hold

That which Today does not possess

And sometimes then, I am so bold

As to hanker and wish without

The sentinel of Second Thought

And sadly then I overlook

The Very Thing today has brought

© Janet Martin

... be content with what you have...Heb13:5