For All This-A for Effort, Please?

Yesterday This chair 

held a replay of This

because already Little Boy is struggling with this law in all of us...

 For I do not do the good I want to do, 

but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 

Romans 7:19

Read the glorious analysis to the quandary here; 

Romans 7 & 

Romans 8

For all the failures I could count 

In Learning’s stumble-humbled chase 

In the end all seems to amount 

To ‘try again, all by God’s grace’ 

For all the 'bumble-pie' life serves 

Without waiting for ‘seconds please?’ 

I should stagger beneath cruel curves 

If it packed, not lacked calories 

For all the things I thought I knew 

Until life puts it to the test 

Becomes The Thing that draws me to 

My knees with pleas of meek request 

For all the gritty grunts and groans 

That could forge millstones from my tears 

But mercy turns to stepping-stones 

And keeps me from drowning in fears 

For all that at first glance would seem 

To be failure’s shining success 

I pray that God would kindly glean 

An A for effort from its mess 

And save me from would-be despair 

Not by some credit proudly earned 

But by His whisper in my prayer 

For all my spoil, His grace returned 

© Janet Martin