While God Works Together For Good...

Lucy's love for bikes is evident in her home décor...

Wall print 

cushion...

door-knob-bling...

Rom.8:28

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God,

to those who are the called according to His purpose.

The above reference is printed on a chalk board in my sister's Lucy's kitchen,

in the wake of her death;

 a chalkboard that always held a favourite quote, 

bible verse or nugget of wisdom...

Today marks one month since her passing 💔🙏

mentioned  HERE Sorrowful blog break)

The break turned out shorter than I thought it would.

I guess poetry is how I process life...and death

Yesterday our church family, along with extended family and friends

laid to rest a dear brother, age 60, 

our care pastor, as well as a husband, dad and grandpa 

who, only a few weeks previously, was diagnosed with cancer...

'life seems a blur of tears, prayers and indescribable comfort'

I texted my sister this morning as we remembered the one month mark

of Lucy's sudden departure!

(my brother-in-law/ her husband, said,

 'it feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago')

 ...exactly!! 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matt. 5:4 

Through the truth in the above verse, 

we are being incomprehensibly blessed

***

We do not understand the good that oft wears grief’s disguise

Lord, help us trust Thy hand that could have stayed the test that tries

But did not; help us yield our heart with ‘not my will but Thine’

While we behold the bitter part logic cannot define

While You work together for good the brokenness of dreams

And wills, and love misunderstood where mercy’s tide still streams

And works in ways foreign to us, oft ruled by what we see

Oh Lord, our God help us to trust the hope we have in Thee

…while you work together for good beyond most noble thought

Thy purpose, when Thy Hand that could have spared Thee, but did not

You loved, obedient to death (even death on a cross)

Then, help us, with each gifted breath to humbly suffer loss

While You work together for good this life’s troubles, oh God

Help us to not despise the rude appearance of Thy rod

But help us trust in Thee, without explanation’s demands

As we surrender every doubt into Thy nail-scarred hands

While You work together for good that which seems cruelty

While through the power of Your blood, hope abides faithfully

Through every circumstance unkind, while love and mercy pour/roar

Help us, with heart, soul, strength and mind to trust you more and more

© Janet Martin

I spend one day a week with my mother-in-law.

This afternoon while she snoozed I read through

the memories shared in this book by Lucy's friends and family,

(so touching and precious)

Until today, I just couldn't collect my thoughts enough to attempt writing anything

Today I tried...this is the last bit.

'Oh, how I miss her'

Guiltless My-My-My

Ps. 31:24

Be of good courage, 

And He shall strengthen your heart,

 All you who hope in the LORD.

I'm so thankful the above verse ministered to me yesterday

when I needed it desperately!

I'm so thankful for the constant reminders

that God will never leave me or forsake me,

but He comes to me sometimes through 

the care and compassion of fellowman,

and sometimes through His Word whispered to me!

Oh, pray we may seek to hide his Word in our hearts

to equip us for whatever today brings

I am so thankful that 'I can do all things

through Christ who strengthens me'

Phil.4:13

I was torn between writing in first person 'my'

or for every believer 'our'

I decided to make it tenderly, vulnerably and joyfully personal 

but the word 'our' can be easily substituted for 'my' as well

so we can 'rejoice in the Lord' together!

My Faith Has Found a Resting Place 

 (My Hope is Built) | Reawaken Hymns | 

 

 

My Jesus, I Love Thee

My Jesus, My Saviour - [Official Video Lyric] 

 

 My God is All I Need / My God is So Big (Live)

Because God is my help, my strength, the Savior of my soul

My Anchor, my Assurance when grief and dread’s billows roll

My Hope and my Salvation, my kind Comforter and Friend

My Cherished Consolation, my Beginning and my End

My dear Heavenly Father, my Healer when my heart breaks

My Closer-than-a-brother who never leaves or forsakes

My Light to pierce the darkness and my Wonder-fullest Praise

For His mercy and goodness that will follow, all my days

My Shepherd, my Defender, my Hunger and my Enough

My God, both fierce and tender in His everlasting love

My Courage, my Commander, my Confidence to endure

My Fortress, and my Armor and my Victory secure

My Excellent Creator, my faith’s Steadfast Cornerstone

My Faithful Mediator, my Interpreter of groan

My Heaven-intercession in my earthly-temporal

My Pardon for transgression, Love Incomprehensible

My Author and Perfecter as I walk by faith, not sight

My trustworthy Protector, my Confidante, my delight

My heart’s Ruthless Inspector, ere pride’s ruin masquerades

My all-knowing Director as each season blooms and fades

My All-in-all, All-seeing and my All-wise Counselor

The Reason for my being, my Peace in the midst of war

My Holiness, Jehovah, my Shelter, my Resting Place

My Glory-hallelujah for His all-sufficient grace

My Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow-and-Forevermore

My Joy, even in sorrow, my Captain who goes before

My Refuge, my Redeemer, my Escort through highs and lows

My Perfect Plan-frustrater, my Orchestrator of woes

My Greater-He-in-me than he that is in, of this world

He is my Might, my Majesty, my Eagle Wings unfurled

Because God IS, He sets me free from fear of death and hell

Because of His power in me I can do all things well

© Janet Martin

My Lord, I Did Not Choose You (Hymn 54)

My Help (Cometh From The Lord) - The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

My Life Is In Your Hands + Sweet, Sweet Spirit: Song Session

Thankful (to God For All Eternity)

Heb.13:15

Therefore by Him (Jesus) 

let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, 

that is, the fruit of our lips, [d]

giving thanks to His name.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Day!

Above all I am thankful for the precious promises

from God for us!

Yesterday morning's Sunday School lesson included these verses

Also included in the links in the poem below

Num.23:19

God is not human, that he should lie,
    not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
    Does he promise and not fulfill?

1 Cor.1:9

 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship 

with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 For chickens scratching in the yard...

For dawn, pretty as a postcard...

For fresh brewed cuppa joe or tea...

For autumn’s awe-evoking hues;...

For gardens, bent with granted spoil...

For health and strength to tend its Toil...

For gourd-shaped miracles we glean...

Then turn into supper cuisine...

For chickens scratching in the yard

For dawn, pretty as a postcard

Perched on earth’s eastward window ledge

Man's witness to God's honored pledge

For glimpses of God through a glass

Darkened (for now) by ‘days of grass’

For ways we are able to cope

Because of one little word, ‘Hope’

For seasons, as they grin and groan

Through carriages of skin and bone

For oceanic undertows

As joy and sorrow ebbs and flows

For fresh brewed cuppa joe or tea

For love of friends and family

For faith’s unrivaled happiness

Because God keeps His promises

For utter grief, because of love

For knowing God is strong enough

To bear a whole world’s weight of woe

He did! On a cross long ago

For truth, from His word that abides

To anchor Hope, lest shifting tides

Of Time should disillusion, oh

By what we see rather than know

For autumn’s awe-evoking hues;

Crimsons, yellows, bronze, greens and blues

Cheering the crooks where petals fell

In summer-long songs of farewell

For book-comrade’s fine company

Acquainting likes of you and me

With fellow-compadres, long gone

Yet, through ink-legacies, live on

For gardens, bent with granted spoil

For health and strength to tend its Toil

For gourd-shaped miracles we glean

And turn into supper cuisine

For so much beauty to behold

(God’s handiwork never grows old)

For wonder’s worship, bona fide

For tots who slow oft hurried stride

For bliss of heartthrob, humbly stirred

By gifts of butterfly-bloom-bird

By treetops tossing glossy manes

Not yet undone by autumn rains 

For heartfelt hugs as love's tears fall

For firm handshakes that say is all 

For peace beyond description's pow'r

God reserves for grief's rawest hour  

For comfort from handwritten art

Notes and verses to cheer the heart

And splash the sunshine of God's smiles

Through people to brighten dark miles 

 

For paths of righteousness to trod

While The Foolish, who deny God

Throng thoroughfares, in vain pursuit

Of this world’s unfulfilling fruit

For the kinship of Common Task

For Heaven’s Helper, if we ask

For food to eat and clothes to wear

And hands to hold/fold in thankful prayer

For blessings too profuse to count

For salvation’s unflagging fount

Over grace and truth’s Bedrock streams

The flood/blood that cleanses and redeems

For feasts, for both body and soul

To fit us where Fight’s billows roll

For the Good Shepherd, glorious

His rod and staff to comfort us

For Thoughts and Ways kindling man’s Why

For God’s extravagant reply

As we trust Him, faith's kind increase

Crowns brokenness with joy and peace

For mercies no mortal deserves

As wisdom weathers learning curves

For all the ‘laugh lines’ that we earn

In the classroom of live-and-learn

Oh Lord, the author of our days

Receive our sacrifice of praise

As faith’s cornucopia brims

With love’s ceaseless thanksgiving hymns

…because Your love, steadfast and sure

Holds Hope’s storm-battered bark secure

Until faith is eclipsed at last

By Sight, no longer darkly glassed

Then face to face we will adore

As all we wondered at before

Dissolves in thankful ecstasy

To God, for all eternity

Because He so loved you and me

© Janet Martin

For bliss of heartthrob, humbly stirred

By gifts of butterfly-bloom-bird...

For comfort from handwritten art

Notes and verses to cheer the heart

And splash the sunshine of God's smiles

Through people to brighten dark miles 

Just a few of a myriad of 'heart art' 💖🙏

(and to think that not so long ago I thought it was 'just a card'!!)

I'm so sorry for all the 'just a card's I never sent!

Promises (Official Music Video) - Matt Boswell & Matt Papa

Plea For Perseverance

To list all the ways today's poem was inspired, is difficult to encapsulate...

But it is a corralling of wonder wakened while pondering Heb.11 &12:1&2

By the showering of love, of sympathy,

from so many caring people, 

of comfort and encouragement shared from God's Word,

By devotions penned for such a time as this...

By the indescribable joy in sorrow 

through the Presence of peace God has promised if/as we trust Him,

through both the physical and spiritual storms and battles of faith/life! 

Let me not balk against faith’s test that I would never choose

Let me not fear what God deems best, nor His request refuse

Behold faith’s cloud of witnesses still surrounds you and me

The riches of God’s promises worth every wait-and-see

Let me not wallow in the why that tries the ties of love

But rather winnow my reply till worship is enough

As faith is drawn from shallows to the deeps of grief and loss

Let me be wholly hallowed by the power of the cross

Though the threshing fork pains me, may it drive away the chaff

Till only God sustains me, as I lean upon hope’s staff

For he who suffered in my stead, the uttermost of Grief

Will accomplish all He has said; ‘Lord, help mine unbelief’

For you have borne the bitter blows that prove who we most love

You grant the test faith undergoes to expose lack thereof

Then, help me not to falter beneath full surrender’s price

But let love be an altar laid with living sacrifice

Willing to suffer present loss for joy waiting to be

Counting it joy to bear the cross to faith’s maturity

Obedient, till Death’s Last Strife, that draws ajar the Door

That leads to everlasting life and joy forevermore

© Janet Martin

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,

 whenever you face trials of many kinds,

3 because you know that the testing of your faith 

produces perseverance.

4 Let perseverance finish its work 

so that you may be mature and complete, 

not lacking anything.

Only Trust Him-Alan Jackson

Like a Butterfly...(or, Beneath a Beaming Breadth of Sky)

How sacredly grief keens awareness 

to the preciousness of 

what we sometimes call Ordinary.

How it stuns us, as we realize 

it is Love!

and, what we once considered 'little things' 

are in reality the big things;

the hymn of touch, 

a smile, a hug, a card, a bloom,

a handshake, 'hello', a child, a chick,

an autumn afternoon,

a cup of tea, a meal and 'small-talk' shared, 

a breath-prayer, a holy pause

to marvel at God's infinite supply of mercies 

and then to thank Him, because

no matter what was or will be

He loves and cares for you and me 

***

It's so hard to accurately describe the beauty

of compassion from family, neighbors and friends;

 how your/their tender love strangely sweetens 

sorrow's most bitter parts

Thank-you to each and every one of you

as you remind/teach me anew

 1 Cor. 13:13

And now these three remain: 

faith, hope and love. 

But the greatest of these is love.

***

Love never fails;

it turns heart-wrenching loss

into a startling gift

we would never choose

or know;

a gift, God-breathed to heal

grief's brutal wounds

as love's tears flow...

***

Ps.147:3

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

***

Isa.52:7

How beautiful on the mountains (or in a barnyard) 

are the feet of those who bring good news, 

who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, 

who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 

“Your God reigns!”

These youngsters (blurred to protect privacy)

 overflowed with sympathy, questions and conversation

at the farm where I buy our fresh-as-they-come eggs

(often they run to gather them, still warm with the touch of God!)

SO many gentle moments to cherish...

Beneath a beaming breadth of sky

Life feels like a cheek, kissed

As Time wafts, like a butterfly

To bygone’s croft of mist

As joy and sorrow’s interplay

Composes Bittersweet

Arrangements, strewn like petal-fray

That flutters to the street

Where Fleeting Footfalls thrum and fade

Through seasons come, to pass

Like subtle arpeggios played

On keys of breeze and grass

Where children romp, their innocence

Cradles oblivion

To the brute strength of mere moments

Ever-so-deftly spun

Like threads, into a work of art

As tears and laughter meld

Love’s precious glints of heart-to-heart

That we so briefly held

Beneath a beaming breadth of sky

Where Today/lifetimes seem/s so small

As we waft like a butterfly

Toward Dusk’s shadow fall

Beneath a beaming breadth of sky

By faith we humbly hear

God, kindly whisper, 'here am I

To catch each falling tear'

© Janet Martin

My neighbour, walking from her house to mine, bringing last night's supper 💝

and last but not least

this morning's kind reminder devotion from the book

Springs in the Valley by Mrs. Chas E. Cowman

Stayed on Thee

Isa.26:3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,

whose mind is stayed on thee:

because he trusteth in thee

'Now what? Now how?',

my heart seemed to cry this morning

as I thought of Les and his family,

 post-wedding-prep flurry and distraction

Pre-everything that yet remains to be...

(for all of us)

'Now What? Now how?!' I cried

for everyone suffering ongoing sorrow

...and the verse above ministered to my cry

and comforted me 

May it comfort you too.

My Faith Looks Up To Thee 

‘Mind stayed on Thee’ what confidence hope’s careworn courage finds

What peace anoints grief’s wounds, that God, so rich in mercy binds

What comfort cheers life’s ups and downs, where this world’s troubles groan

What joy (in spite of Sorrow) crowns the gape of the Unknown

‘Mind stayed on Thee’ Thy word is truth; faith’s footing held secure

Trustworthy for both aged and youth, armour for rich and poor

Though generations rise and fall like waves upon a sea

Thy Word abides through all of time and all eternity

‘Mind stayed on Thee’ no substitute can console or appease

No mortal merit can compute what God alone decrees

Ah, Heaven’s earthly ordinance nothing can overthrow

Able, in every circumstance to conquer every foe

‘Mind stayed on Thee’, hope’s sure anchor where tempests roar and toss

How trustworthy is He who bore the horror of the cross

Who knew no sin but became sin, each sinner to atone

Savior and Redeemer, amen. Death and hell overthrown

‘Mind stayed on Thee’, no sweeter solace can our spirits find

No purer peace, God’s purpose is compassionate and kind

Though oft misunderstood, until with humble mind renewed

We yield and trust Love’s perfect will with awestruck gratitude

© Janet Martin

And I will pray the Father, 

and he shall give you another Comforter, 

that he may abide with you for ever;

John 14:16

I have told you these things,

 so that in me you may have peace.

 In this world you will have trouble.

 But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Jesus~

John 16:33

.

Through Every Prayer

1 Cor.1:18

For the [a]message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

In the past few weeks I am learning anew

the most beautiful and powerful words in the world

'I am praying for you'

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Through every trial of this life where Reason’s reach confounds

God’s goodness and mercy run rife; His providence abounds

How dearer then hope undergirds; His promises are true

How nearer He draws through these words ‘I am praying for you’

Through every up and down we bear we are never alone

God’s power flows through every prayer to comfort sorrow’s groan

For surely, He has borne love’s grief and suffered seeming loss

The price that purchased our peace, He paid upon a cross

Through every valley we pass through we follow where He trod

We trace the blood and tear-stained woo that draws us back to God

He, ever rich in mercy knows each heartache that we bear

He awes/helps us as His power flows through us, through every prayer

Through every test that trouble brings He keeps us in His care

Enfolding us beneath His wings through every earnest prayer

For nothing is too hard for He by Whom all things were made

Through every faith-anointed plea His power is displayed 

© Janet Martin

Isa.53:4

Surely He has borne our griefs 

 carried our sorrows;

 Yet we esteemed Him stricken, 

Smitten by God, 

and afflicted...

Ps.91:4

He will cover you with his feathers, 

and under his wings you will find refuge; 

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Don't Wait (until it is too late)

 

His basket of peppers spilled over and over...

but he wanted to carry it,

so we picked them up, over and over

 and finally, with exhausted triumph

we made it to the goal!!!

SO, whatever our load happens to be today, peppers or otherwise, keep on!

Don't give up in despair...

Love 's care is worth every tear, every prayer

Someday (it could be as soon as today!)

We too with exhausted triumph will reach the goal! 

Our community has suffered a number of reminders

this year of the uncertainty of what a day may hold!

Don't wait to want what today still offers!!

***

Don’t wait to do the best you can

To love God first, then fellowman

To give thanks to the One who grants

His grace in every circumstance

Don’t wait to make the most of life

But, bury the hatchet of strife

Before we meet The Righteous Judge

Don’t nurse the wounds of bitter grudge

Don’t harbor anger in your heart

But with each breath, let’s do our part

Before today is history

To make a treasured memory

Don’t wait until it is too late

To linger at the soldered gate

Of a thousand longings untold

Thy lips still smile, thy arms still hold

Life is a gift, its curtain close

Only the Giver of it knows

Then do not wait to love, to pray

To wish for what God grants today

Take up love’s yoke of joy and grief

Plead God to turn blind unbelief

To faith, then trust love's nail-scarred Hand

With all we do not understand

Then live as if today could be

The gateway to eternity

Love God and fellowman, don't wait

Till it is forever too late

© Janet Martin

2 Cor.6:1-2

As God’s fellow workers,a then, 

we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.

  2For He says:

“In the time of favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”b

Behold, now is the time of favor;

 now is the day of salvation!