Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Stairway to God...and first update on Dave's injuries






Oh, sacred place of hope and grace and promises secure
The Lord will hear our cry and His reply is always best
No matter what befalls, the love of God is true and sure
And prayer is mankind’s solace when tempests of trial test

Futile for man to try to understand the mind of God
His thoughts and ways are higher and often misunderstood
For we see but in part; the Lord is merciful, His rod
Though it seems oh, so grievous is always for our good

Sweet hour of prayer, where God is there to comfort our plea
He succors our need and intercedes from up above
As ever, without limit flows His gentle sympathy
Where once upon a cross He proved the fullness of His love

Do not despair; our Lord is near, how dear His promises
He hears our call; his ears are always tuned to our cry
Where prayer is mankind’s stairway to God’s faultless faithfulness
His perfect intercession knows our need and will supply

© Janet Martin

SO much to pray for these days.
Please, pray with us for my brother Dave.
We are waiting word on his injuries after a work accident yesterday when
he was air-lifted to Hamilton hospital.
He is in much pain!

First update:
It appears that he fell onto his left side, and he broke his left collar bone, all the ribs on his left side, fractured bones in his mid to lower spine, he has a collapsed lung, and has a small tear in his spleen.
He has oxygen to help him breath because of his collapsed lung, and has a tube in his side draining out fluids.
He is in the Trauma Unit, and there is a nurse in his room monitoring him all the time.  He is in a lot of pain and is quite heavily medicated to try to control that.
At this time it looks like his injuries should heal on their own without surgery.

Let us continue to lift their family up in prayer, and pray that Dave will heal quickly, and that Karen and the children will have peace too.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Intricate Alloy



So much to learn as we train and teach...

Little ones have a way of teaching us when we think we're maxed out,
there's more in the tank than we thought!
They teach us the bigness in littleness.
...how to truly live in the moment!

Learning as we’re teaching
Intricate alloy
Bowing while we’re reaching
Training girl and boy
As they open for us
Ways we never planned
Innocence so precious
Guiding 'wisdom’s' hand
Biggest lessons rendered
By life’s smallest throng
Little child so tender
Leading us along

© Janet Martin

Grail of Grateful Gladness



 It's a drippy morning, but stunning still!


Color cascades, gray-blue-yellow
Over heaven’s wall
Morning, like a jocund fellow
Metes time’s madrigal

Gifts too manifold to mention
Pour from grace-gilt grail
Summer’s streams in green redemption
Over hill and vale

Slow thy hurried wish and worry
Lest thou skimmest bow’rs
Where man’s Maker, rich in mercy
Mentors us with flow’rs

Touch Time’s yoke of season-splendour
With love’s humble awe
For its tokens, swift and tender
Yield to nature’s law

Not Want’s futile sigh
June attunes the heart to wonder
At God’s kind reply

© Janet Martin


Monday, June 19, 2017

Oft Upon Soft Death of Day...





How oft upon soft death of day
We scan the fading fell
Of motifs pinkly borne away
On twilight’s hill and dell
And oft, the hour, doffed of light
Seems gentler in near dark
Where dirge of day and birth of night
Pastoral leas embark

The heart is like a sailor, oh,
On seas that surge within
A monumental ebb and flow
Beneath frail veil of skin
Where oft upon soft death of day
The undertow of years
Can move thought’s bark through darkling splay
To spill salt fray in tears

How uncommon this common path
That none yet all have tread
To stand on tinseled aftermath
Of light with lowered head
Where coral-purple choirs play
An intangible hymn
As oft upon soft death of day
We sense Time growing dim

The more and less of life and love
Runs through the hour at hand
Where we are at the mercy of
Something or Someone grand
Where oft upon Soft Death of Day
We hear without a sound
The tiptoe of Untrodden Way
Weave harbors underground

© Janet Martin

We never know what a day will bring! 
Thoughts and prayers with those in Portugal
where wildfires claim many lives.