In Des Leavah/In This Life (a Pennsylvania Dutch Poem)

 I have not written a poem in my 'mudda-tsoong'/'mother-tongue' for a few years 😊

side-note; spell-check went completely NUTS as I typed this😁

In des leavah veadt ma ivrich

Un uft ganz katz oof gadult

So feel es ma net begrivah

So feel kshengt un so feel shuldt

In des leavah full mit droovel

Veaht a lot yisht rum gesowd

Gvicht tsu shveah fa heartz un boogel

Von ma net da goot Gott drowd

In des leavah fiind ma immah

Feel, so feel fa dank-fouwa sie

Immah hut ebbah’s feel shlimmah

Ach, ma set mae dank-bouwa sie

In des leaveh set ma beveada

Fa froh sie mitt vos ma hutt

Un alles shuunsht yisht tsu-fon-drowa

Tsu da goot un lieblich Gott

© Janet Martin

(English translation)

In this life we get worked up

And often really short on patience

So much that we cannot grasp

So much gifted, so much debt

In this life full of trouble

There’s a lot of rushing around

Weight too heavy for heart and back

If we do not good God trust

In this life we always find

Much, so much to be thankful for

Always someone is far worse off

Oh, we should be more thankful

In this life we should try

To be glad with what we have

And everything else just entrust

To a good and loving God

© Janet Martin

...and a song for fun!

Of What Lies Ahead...

 On the weekend something about the swiftness of Time was talked about

(the way people fast moving past the middle stage of middle age are apt to do)

and hubby remarked how it seems wise to think much more about the magnitude of
what lies ahead rather than focus on how much time has left behind 

because there is far, far more ahead than behind no matter how far back we look!

Yes. 

2 Peter 3:8-9

‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends:
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
 He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish,
but everyone to come to repentance.’

 Isaiah 40:6
A voice says, "Cry out!" And I asked, "What should I cry out?"

 "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.

Psalm 103:14-16

 …For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;

when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.…

Much more ahead than behind

The ash of ages spent

Is like a whisp of mist or wind

To bit-of-Being lent

A bloom that flares and fades

Then falls…to Bygone wed

As moment unto moment trades

All but what lies ahead

Where thought, with all its might

Cannot begin to grasp

What lies ahead as Soul takes flight

After this life is past

The magnitude of days

Since Time began to be

Is but a sparkle on a maze

Of brief mortality

…when weighed against A Deep

We ought to keep in mind

Where always much more lies ahead

Than all we leave behind

© Janet Martin

A few message-excerpts from the book by Catherine Marshall...
 A Man Called Peter 

...continued from above photo

(...continued from above photo)

On Taking Fear Captive So We are Not Its Slave...

We demolish arguments and every pretension

 that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

 and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ ...

2 Cor.10:5

Every so often I need to listen to this song 

because there are a LOT of 'what if's/fears that could hound/torment us!

Fear can be a hounding beast

Blinds us to God’s mercy-feast

Binds us to a yoke of dread

Makes hope feel heavy as lead

Keeps us from faith’s flying leap

Shackles us with doubt’s defeat

Cumbers us with load of care

Numbs us to the peace of prayer

Takes us captive lest we know

Faithful Words whereby we go

Makes us slaves, a faithless fraud

Instead of servants to God

Hold the hand that wears Love's Scars

Touch the hem that heals our hearts

When fear's hounding hellions rile

Turn the other cheek, (faith) and smile

© Janet Martin

 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

2 Tim.1:7

July-High

Silver breeze cobbles blue seas to the dock

Bumblebee bobbles in pink hollyhock

As the spark flies, July follows its clime

Heaven-lent glimpses to season-bent Time

Shimmer of shadow on glimmer of wheat

Summer-sweet tempo tapped out in bare feet

Wildflower wanders wherever it will

Dreamer drinks wonder while standing stalk-still

Wanderlust dangles from towering trees

Duty’s Must tangles with flowering pleas

Moments unravel like petal-primed stave

Beneath the gavel of cradle-to-grave

Look, July’s garden, a free-for-all show

Look, how the hill glistens with summer-snow

Look, mallow, yarrow, mullein and milkweed

Where swallow, sparrow and finch sowed its seed

Creek slithers, sleek like a snake through the reeds

Week withers, swift like a gift full of needs

Clock is a pocket full of heart-shaped holes

Heart is a locket full of star-draped shoals

Tug-of-Tide hobbles the soul to the sea

March of Time cobbles streets with memory

Tall grasses tickle twilight’s crimson bars

As July passes in a splash of stars

© Janet Martin