Joy Unspeakable

Today's Sunday School lesson

 for my Gr.4-6 class was the parable of the talents from Matt.25:14-30

My prayer is that these little weekly gettogethers will help to

grow their love for God into a joyful, living faith,

wakening their hearts to many opportunities to serve Him every day,

with what He has given,

no matter who or where we are...

that our daily prayer may be at every age

to be good and faithful stewards

Below are a few questions and verses from the lesson...

(good questions and verses to meditate on at any age!)

What are some ways you can use 

what you’ve been given to love God and serve Him?

Why is it worth it, to use what we’ve been given to serve God?

Why was the evil servant wrong to hide the talent?

Rom.11:35-36

“Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay them?”[a]

36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.

To him be the glory forever!

 Amen.

Rom.14:17-18

17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, 

but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 

18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God 

and receives human approval.

1 Pet. 4:10-11

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, 

as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. 

If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides,

 so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

 To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever.

 Amen.

To the true follower of Jesus

there is nothing sweeter on earth

than gathering with fellow-believers 

to worship our Saviour!

Here we renew reverence and encouragement

to be faithful stewards!

All that Thrills My Soul is Jesus

What joy to gather together

To be drawn in one embrace

With love’s invisible tether

Of communal hope and grace

Of humble, glad expectation

To be overcome once more

By devotion’s celebration

To the Savior we adore

To be filled with wordless wonder

As our hearts and souls are wed

In reverence as we ponder

He who died in our stead

What a friend we have in Jesus

Oh, what joy His love bestows

The power of the cross frees us

From the debt each sinner owes

What a beautiful reminder

As we join to praise the Lord

To determine to be kinder

To love and obey His word

To find in worship’s communion

Inexpressible delight

At the glimpse of a Reunion

When at last faith turns to sight

© Janet Martin

1 Pet.1:3-9

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 

By His great mercy He has given us new birthb into a living hope

 through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 

4and into an inheritance that is imperishable, 

undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you,

  5who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation

 that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

6In this you greatly rejoice, 

though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in various trials

7so that the proven character of your faith—more precious than gold, 

perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, 

glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

8Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; 

and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him 

and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 

9now that you are receiving the goal of your faith, 

the salvation of your souls.

So Long, September

This is always a sentimental day of the year...So long, September!

Swept away in a flurry of preparation and preserving!

September- the thick of

Earth's heaven 

of harvest!

So long, September’s misty morn...

Like a postlude, to tune the dark

With ballads slipping like a tear

No lips can kiss away...

Tonight's dessert awaiting a mound of freshly-whipped cream,

before heading to Jim's mom and sister, who are cooking the rest of supper!

So long, sweet sweep of summer spent

Of green-leaf secrets whispered ere

The air grew heavy with the scent

Of farewell’s pungent atmosphere

Ere daylight’s dusky hours fell

Faster beneath gavels deep blue

Where younger hunger tolled a bell

Of inevitable adieu

So long, September’s misty morn

Futile to stoke Past’s embers, oh

Or don a countenance forlorn

Where seasons always come and go

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to greet, a time to part

A time to laugh, a time to weep

And gather harvests for the heart

…fragments of color, peach and plum

Of hummingbird and butterfly

A petal-and-echo-spectrum

From summer full of days gone by

Of dahlia-pom-poms, vermillion

Of fields trembling with cricket lays

Of harvest moon medallion

Dangling above our raptured gaze

Where compositions of so-long

Rouse rhapsodies no pen can spell

Like the teal essence of sea-song

Rolling within, swell after swell

Like a postlude, to tune the dark

With ballads slipping like a tear

No lips can kiss away. Ah, hark!

Is that a falling leaf I hear?

So long, well-trampled garden path

By expeditions to and fro

To heap baskets with aftermath

That always awes and thrills us so

With toil and mercy’s dividends

Praise God from whom all blessing flows

For every break of day that wends

To so-long’s certain curtain-close

So long, purple wild aster art

And amber ambience that gleams

Like fresh-pressed cider, sweet and tart

To tease eager taste-buds with dreams

That, in spite of what time may take

It kindly, generously grants

Un-stoppered wonderment to wake

A time to sing, a time to dance

So long, so long, September-love

Of fading flower-serenade

Of clinging to a thinning glove

We wear on earth, but heaven-made

Of places we never quite found

And some we did, and never sought

So long, so long, September, crowned

With apple-red and golden rod

© Janet Martin

Loving Masterpiece...

Each day unfurls its lease of life

Glad laughter swirls with sorrow’s tears

To follow footsteps that run rife

Across a world of yesteryears...

'Maybe I'm living in the past', I commented to my daughter

as I scanned grocery-flyers, searching for what seem to be 

sale-prices of a bygone era.

We all know we cannot live in the past;

each day is its own Present Newness

never to return!

Each day is charged with what yet waits

To tune replies with grin-and-groan

To fulfill that which orchestrates

Both stumbling-block and stepping-stone

Each day unfurls its lease of life

Glad laughter swirls with sorrow’s tears

Then follows footsteps that run rife

Across a world of yesteryears

Each day is primed with Time’s decrease

Four-season circuits ebb and flow

Hello-farewell, embrace-release

Heart-pieces scatter as we go

No matter how common or grand

Each day is never commonplace

For it is a gift from God’s hand

A loving masterpiece of grace

© Janet Martin

Psalm 106:1
Hallelujah ! 

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; 

His loving devotion endures forever.

Awe See-saw

The color of today's task?

Beet red!

...among other colours🍂

I saw the day that was 

slip softly from my sight

A glint, like dandelion gauze 

wafting into the night

I see the day that is 

unfold the darkened lea

A counterpane of promises 

and unpenned poetry

Ah, soon the day I see 

will be the day I saw

A flicker of flowers and tea 

and task-to-do, and awe-

...filled-gratitude for He 

who tends the gates of air

And watches over you and me 

with kind and faithful care

© Janet Martin

Eccles.2:24

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, 

and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. 

This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

Intangible Tango

You press half-pictures to a place

Where fact and fancy interlace

Like woodland shadows as they spill

In dusky fringes, dark and still

To mellow, painted meadows where

You press your hello to the air

And draw me almost close enough

To feel the essence of your love

Slip through seasons without a name

Like poetry no pen can tame

As lost and lonely as the flight

Of a kiss blown into the night

Or fragments of a melody

Wild as a riled, wave-ragged sea

You press half-pictures to a place 

No touch can ever quite retrace

© Janet Martin

Of Highs and Lows (that life bestows) or Faith's Footpath

So much to rejoice in 

and so much to mourn

This is the battle to

which we are born

But He who made us 

fits us for the fight

Because faith's footpath

Is not walked by sight!

Wishing you a precious sense of His Presence

in the highs and lows that life bestows

Psalm 125:2

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, 

so the LORD surrounds His people, 

both now and forevermore.

Someday the highs and lows that life bestows will turn to mist

The all-consuming here and now will no longer exist

Someday all will reply to a call, none knows when will be

When, in the twinkling of an eye man meets eternity

As final breath eclipses mortal groaning and applause

As moment-let ellipses 

meld into 

A Life That Was

Meanwhile, this day the Lord has made beckons us to rejoice

In mercy’s evidence portrayed where morning lifts its voice

And lays beneath faith’s stumbling steps and agonies of dust

Sufficient grace to help mortal ineptness to entrust

Today’s unknowns to He who knows, who attends and sustains

Through highs and lows 

that life bestows 

as long as time remains

The beauty of the earth is scarred by consequence of sin

The best of man is marred by Adamic natures within

The heart, des’prately wicked, (yet not without hope!!), through He

Who left his throne to pay the debt that sets doomed sinners free

As true repentance and belief receive salvation’s gift

Life's highs and lows 

of joy and grief, 

faith’s footpath through Time’s rift

Someday yon hills will spill with rose gardens that never fade

No ill will mar the thrill of endless day the Lord has made

Someday ‘the way things are’ will cease, in pastures ever-green

We will behold love’s masterpiece with no dark glass between

As we pass through a curtain-close thought cannot comprehend

Someday, when highs and lows 

that life bestows 

come to an end

© Janet Martin

The Sacred 'Real Deal'

1 Sam.16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel,

 “Do not look at his appearance 

or at the height of his stature,

 because I have rejected him; 

for God does not see as man sees, 

since man looks at the outward appearance, 

but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Decorated facades

Like pretty cakes, appeal...

(but the truth of the matter is, this pretty frosting

 could be covering something delectable 

or extremely vile! 

The outside doesn't tell...)

Below is a photo my daughter sent me today,

 of a cake she made for a school fundraiser

(used with permission)

It looks great!

And I have tasted enough of her baking to be sure it will taste great!

However 'it looks great' alone is not enough!

It's what is under the countenance that counts🙏

As a man thinks, he is

Thought soon gives way to voice

The invisible genesis

Of love turns into choice

Thought's word and deed unfolds

Like leaves on many trees

Yet, countenance that gaze beholds

Is not what God’s eye sees

Eden’s forbidden fruit

Was pleasing to the eye

 Thought entertained That Cunning Brute

Then partook of his lie

Pride mocks God, true and good

The evidence of thought

Is always clearly understood

Through fear of Him, or not

Decorated facades

Like pretty cakes, appeal

But beneath what visage applauds

Is the crucial 'real deal'  

Therefore, we ought to heed

 Thought's hotbed of design

Ere aftermath of scattered seed

Hangs heavy on the vine 

For as we think we are

Then, pray this is our plea

That meditations of the heart

Are pleasing, Lord, to Thee

© Janet Martin

Ps.141

I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me.

Hear my voice when I call to You.

2May my prayer be set before You like incense,

my uplifted hands like the evening offering.

3Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;

keep watch at the door of my lips.

4Do not let my heart be drawn to any evil thing

or take part in works of wickedness

with men who do iniquity;

let me not feast on their delicacies.

5Let the righteous man strike me;

let his rebuke be an act of loving devotion.

It is oil for my head; let me not refuse it.

For my prayer is ever against the deeds of the wicked.

6When their rulers are thrown down from the cliffs,

the people will listen to my words,

for they are pleasant.

7As when one plows and breaks up the soil,

so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

8But my eyes are fixed on You,

O GOD the Lord.

In You I seek refuge;

do not leave my soul defenseless. 

9Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,

and from the lures of evildoers.

10Let the wicked fall into their own nets,

while I pass by in safety.

Of Unbroken Marriage Vows

Today is my parent's 60th Wedding Anniversary...

On Saturday Mom and Dad, along with all children and spouses

enjoyed a day of celebration of God's goodness,

in the blessing of the milestone of 60 years of marriage!

And no, the waters have not always been calm and sun-sparkled!

They have weathered many a self-sacrificing storm.

Happy 60th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

So thankful for you!

No beauty in the world compares to love that stands the test of time

A yoke weathered by creature cares through vows uttered in youth’s green prime

Where none, as God joins heart to heart, with love’s solemn ‘from this day forth’

Can know how far ‘till death doth part’ will undo Heaven’s best on earth

For, when love is patient and kind, and when it does not seek its own

There is nothing that we can find worth more (save faith’s sound Cornerstone)

To ground love’s house built on the Rock, an anchor for the storms we face

To help us in our walk and talk to be examples of God’s grace

For it is by His grace love bears and believes and endures all things

A Threefold Cord; nothing compares to the strength this awareness brings

Where, by the mystery of God two become one, till death doth part

Let not man put asunder what marriage vows have joined, heart to heart

For nothing in the world compares to love that withstands living’s test

A recompense of humble prayers, of lessons learned through forgiveness

To bring honor and glory to He who is a most faithful Friend

And helps Husband and Wife to be loving and faithful to the end

Dear Mom and Dad…

God, bless and keep, protect and guide you on this special day, and then

From this day forth may He provide love and faith’s sacred need, amen

Where, though much in this world is broken, may what time weathers and bows

By God’s grace be love’s faithful token of Unbroken Marriage Vows

© Janet Martin

Num.6:24-26

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
 The Lord [a]lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.” ’