More Than Ballyhoo

Discouragement would be a noose

Daybreak, a ball and chain

And fear would be a foe, footloose

Where hope could not sustain

And hope, ah, what then would it be?

But mockery of years

Through which anguish rolls like a sea

And hunger commandeers

This skeletal carriage of Want

Would not, nay, could not pray

While hours fling their tick-tock taunt

To lives, slipping away

…a desperado’s cheerless chase

Of days devoid of goals

If it were by works, not by grace

That we must save our souls

© Janet Martin

 For by grace you have been saved through faith;

 and that not of yourselves,

 it is the gift of God; 

 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.…

Eph.2:8-9 

... remember that you were at that time separate from Christ,
excluded from the commonwealth of Israel,
and strangers to the covenants of promise,
having no hope and without God in the world.  
But now in Christ Jesus 
you who formerly were far off 
have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace,
who made both groups into one
and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,…
Eph.2:12-14