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Thursday, May 30, 2019

If Your Son Was A Chip Off The Old Block




If your son was a chip off the old block
And followed the footsteps you laid
Would we know, would it show that he loved God
By laws he revered and obeyed

Would we see him reach for his Bible?
To look to his Father above
For life’s daily guidance and counsel
Would we see God’s light in his love

If your son was a chip off the old block
Inheriting more than your name
Would it make you humbly thankful?
Or sorrowfully fill you with shame

Would he be a man among men, sir?
Or ever remain just a boy
Would he, in his speech and his manner
Fulfill a father’s pride and joy

Would he be master of his vices
As he mirrors more than your face
Would he, by his words and his choices
Make this world a better place?

And, if as time passed, folk would mention
How much he is just like his dad
If your son was a chip off the old block
Would this make you happy or sad?

© Janet Martin


 
Proverbs 13:24
He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

Proverbs 23:24
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.

Prov.10:1
A wise son maketh a glad father:

Middle-age Mother's Musing...





To let go without losing wonder
To sense on the tense tides of change
So much yet to master and ponder
So much yet for time to estrange

Where torn between worlds past and future
The present runs rife with life’s charge
And wounds that no surgeon can suture
Slashed deep in the heart of the barge

Where it is too late to untangle
Loosed threads that have severed their ties
While we are still trying to wrangle
The rebel that rouses our sighs

And rushes like winds through the wild woods
Charging like a maddened platoon
That crushes the bloom of lost childhoods
To shards shaped like echoes of June

Where oft, like a soft summer’s vesper
Time’s Maestro immerses the breeze
With murmurs of morrow and yester
Of maybes and memories

© Janet Martin


Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Whilst Sailing Life's Seas on the Sneeze of a Breeze (or Of This)


 So much joy
...and so much sorrow
where one is the other
awaits in the morrow...

So much to love 
in the living Of This;
Time is an ocean 
of moment-shaped stars
Dashing and splashing, 
now kick and now kiss
Surging and merging 
with Bygone’s blue bars

Holding and molding, 
so daring and wearing
And bolder, the older 
we get, so it seems
Peering and veering 
and sparing and sharing
Like wayfaring pilgrims 
on day-baring streams

So much to see 
in the lending Of This
Color and dolor, 
hunger, happiness
Giggling and wiggling, 
now burden, now bliss
Knee-slapping, hand-clapping, 
mouth-flapping mess

Ranting and planting,
granting pants with patches
Hoping while coping 
with ‘alright’ and ‘nope’
Dreaming and scheming,  
batten down the hatches
Trying to balance 
on budget’s tight rope

So much to lose 
in the learning of this
Carefully, prayerfully 
pause and proceed
Preaching and teaching, 
 revering what is
Knowing the Difference 
between want and need

Smiling whilst whiling 
the miles into mist
So much to weather, 
un-tether, retie
Skimming through glimmers 
where shimmers untwist
Into a wake of 
heart-aching good-bye

So much to miss 
in the leaving Of This
Laughter that echoes
 long past curtain-close
Fingers that linger 
to trace an abyss
Clinging to Time’s stinging 
nettle and rose

Gladder and sadder 
and dearer and sheerer
Dripping and slipping 
through Tempo that carves
With swirl and ebb and furl
a stranger’s mirror
Quivers of river 
like gossamer scarves

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Call to Worship


 We tried to make the most of one deliciously sunny-warm day
before more rain-days.
Worship, thankfully is NOT weather/whether-dependent!


Come, worship He who instills wonder-worlds within bud-orbs and seeds
 Hope’s Chariot of morn is borne through starry streets by Mercy’s steads
It sweeps the canvas of the heavens with colours that steal our breath
Come, worship He who made a way that we may overcome dark death
Through He who loves us so He gave the best He had; His only Son
To break the curse of sin and triumph over what Evil had done

Come, worship He who sets the sea between the borders of dry land
And moves in high and holy ways that we will never understand
Come, raise the banner of His praise above Intention’s broken bars
For even our worst of days are cupped in Hands that wear love’s scars
Come, worship He who feeds the birds and sees the little sparrow fall
Who clothes the fields with fairest flowers yet still loves us most of all

Come, worship He who gives glad reason to get up and try once more
As from the whirring wheel of seasons streams of countless blessing pour
Aha! May’s apple-orchards spill pink-popcorn-like kernels to bloom
Hurrah, the world so long so bare fills like an Artist’s fine Showroom
Where right before our very eyes His perfect poetry takes shape
For His Beauty is without guise; it leaves our mouths and minds agape

Come, worship He who lavishes our lives with more than we can grasp
And does not leave us comfortless when trouble tries our feeble clasp
But grants exactly what we need exactly when His wisdom deems
Where even in the darkest place His light of grace and goodness streams
Where, on this blue dot in the middle of a myriad of stars
He who made people in His image knows exactly where we are

Then come, and worship He who delights in the music of the soul
From hearts of humble gratitude in hymns, His Majesty extol
For He alone is worthy; by no other name can man be saved
Upon his brow and hands Salvation’s scars of suff’ring are engraved
Then come and worship He who, when we fail, abides faithful and true
Where fear can find no foothold for what He has promised He will do

Come, worship He whose evidence only the greatest fool disdains
And chooses through blind ignorance to struggle in sin’s hopeless chain
Come worship He who hates the sin but loved the sinner unto death
Then worship Him with everything that is instilled with life and breath
…who threads gold through cold rock and coal deep in the bed of earth
And fathers mortal’s wordless wonder in the miracle of birth

Come worship He who through the innocence of children, teaches us
And who, oft through calamity, breaks through our pride and reaches us
Who takes the way we are and makes us worthy of Heaven’s reward
If we believe; then we receive the inheritance of the Lord
So, come and worship He who is without beginning, without end
The God of all eternity who longs to be our dearest friend

© Janet Martin






Ps.136

 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.
17 to him who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel.
His love endures forever.
23 He remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
24 and freed us from our enemies.
His love endures forever.
25 He gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.