A Reason for Joy Year-round

Joy does not disappear like a season or gifts we give

True Joy is an every-day-all-year Reason to live 

My, my, how silverly the wrapping fell off the gift of this new day....

Frost-brushed, a hushed world rouses from beneath a star-frothed quill

Where God splays on spent ages virgin pages of His will

Holy goodness and mercy in patient Perfection pleads

With broken pieces fashioned by the cry of mankind’s needs

The depth of our dependence does not exceed heaven’s reach

This breadth of Being borrows where sorrow and joy beseech

As rawness of Time’s tumult exults in constant demise

Yet hope unveils its legions in dawn’s silver-gilded prize

The Way that leads to Life or Death is laid beneath our feet

Survival’s breath-by-breath accomplishment is bittersweet

Where our uttermost meek boast ought to be only thus;

The love of God who through his Son grants Living Hope; Jesus

Frost-brushed, a hushed world rises from the ashes of the Past

Time’s quill touches the pages where soon man’s scribbles are cast

And would be unintelligible but for God-gifted grace

Where Glory left all Glory to bring hope to human race

© Janet Martin

This Salvation

A manger-bed, a Stranger that His dearly-loved denied

Nowhere to lay his head, upon a cross He bled and died

To save once and for all, mankind, by Heaven’s King of kings

Thus we rejoice because of hope that this salvation brings