Friday, September 30, 2022

Room of Doors



How wonderfully heart-warming it is to recall a life well-lived, in faithfulness to God.
But how very common, unpopular and unglamorous is the living of such a life,
ignoring the lure of many a wink with eyes fixed on One Door (to eternity)
that once again God's mercy holds ajar in a new day of grace!



The grace of God implores 
with love that will not fail
Where life is like a room of doors where choice and onus hail
Where seasons rise and fall 
like wave rolls over wave
Until our final port of call is back to God who gave

We share in common this,
 kiss of humanity
As wail of earthly genesis births immortality
Where Mist of Mortal Must, 
is tethered to a toll
Beneath the sheath of dust to dust resides the deathless soul

Ah, it is not enough 
to do the best we can
Or confess that we love, but only by measure of man
For all love comes from He 
who alone authors life
Each breath flirts with eternity like thread skimming a knife

The grace of God implores 
where goodness and love brim
Behold! life’s little room of doors begins and ends with Him
Time’s wave of corridors 
where seasons rise and fall
 Rolls swiftly o'er grave-stubbled shores to the Soul’s port of call

The grace of God implores 
and wills a new day's toll
Ah, pity the one that ignores the Savior of the Soul
The Way, the Truth, The Life; 
there is no other Door
Save one; where remorse will run rife forever, evermore 

© Janet Martin

John 1:4
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. 
We have seen His glory, 
the glory of the one and only Son 
from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 10:9
I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. 
He will come in and go out and find pasture.

John 11:25
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. 
Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.


John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
 No one comes to the Father except through Me.





Thursday, September 29, 2022

What More Then, Do We Need?



Tis quite a thing to contemplate
The measure of love's price
It's law no one can mediate
To keep, or sacrifice

 Where what we sacrifice for Who
Tells who our allegiance is to
What joy when what is sacrificed 
 Turns loss to gain, when done for Christ 
***
He forgives our sins and remembers them no more!
What more do we need?

Isaiah 43:25
I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake
 and remembers your sins no more.

You discern thought’s intents
You look into the heart
Still, morning spills the evidence
Of mercies You impart



You lavish us with love
You keep us in Your care
Your Word, a wondrous treasure trove
Of wealth beyond compare

You hear us when we pray
Your light dispels dark doubt
Your grace sufficient, come what may
Your ways past finding out

You discern thought’s intents
You look into the heart
Still, morning spills the evidence
Of mercies You impart

Your well never runs dry
Where Living Waters roll
Your Bread of Life will satisfy
The hunger of the soul

Your Son died in our stead
One sacrifice for all
To free us from the curse that led
To hell after The Fall

Where blood of bull and ram
Could never pay sin’s price
Jesus, the only spotless Lamb
Fit for the sacrifice

What a gift we receive
You gave the best you had
So, all who repent and believe
May call you Abba-Dad

What more then, do we need
Where greed for gain runs wild
Your goodness is enough to feed
All who become Your child

You lavish us with love
You keep us in Your care
Our hope in You, more than enough
For every cross we bear

Where, when death runs us through
Death is not the last word
But simply the Grand Entrance to
Forever with You, Lord

What more then, can we say
You make our joy complete
As we press on toward That Day
When earth and Heaven meet 

Then, how awed we will be
All that we sacrificed
A pittance, as eternity
Consummates, All for Christ 

© Janet Martin


John 1:12
But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name,
 He gave the right to become children of God--

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Concerning the Crucial Matter of Hope

I have the habit of using the word 'hopefully', quite often!
Without dissecting hope fully!

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, 
putting on the breastplate of faith and love, 
and the helmet of our hope of salvation.

Flowers bring such a glorious splash of cheer and beauty
to life but are powerless in matters of hope!



Sometimes I write a poem like today's poem
to remind myself of what can be easy to forget, 
seduced by the seen rather than secured by the Unseen

Our small group through our church, was discussing the topic of surrender last night,
reminding me, without full surrender to Christ,
through the new birth, by His mercy, into living hope,
hope is dead!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope 
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

My family thinks I listen to this song more than anyone else in the world
If so, there is a good reason for this.
I am forgetful!





Hope is no helium balloon
On which we fix our eyes
No fling of flowers to festoon
The portent of its prize
No wild rush of adrenaline
No showy evidence
Hope is the heart’s cry anchored in
Unfailing Providence

Hope is no quick and easy fix
No genie in a flask
Wielding a big bag full of tricks
For anything we ask
Hope is a hand we cannot see
To hold us in the gale
The crux of immortality
Through love that will not fail

Hope is a hallelujah hymn
Defeating dread and doubt
A Beacon, no matter how dim
That nothing can put out
Hope is a banner billowing
In the thick of the fight
It is the staff to which we cling
Until faith becomes sight

It is a whisper none can hear
Save in God’s faithful word
It is the archrival of fear
Endurance undeterred
Hope is salvation’s Certainty
The faith that makes us whole
Hope is the cross of Calvary
The anchor of the Soul

Hope is not found in lucky charms
Like rabbit’s feet and such
Hope is God’s everlasting arms
We feel but cannot touch
Hope is intangible yet sure
Through what the cross has won
 Faith's unseen foothold kept secure
In Jesus Christ, God's Son

© Janet Martin

Heb.6:13-20


God’s Unchangeable Promise

13When God made His promise to Abraham, 
since He had no one greater to swear by, 
He swore by Himself, 14saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.”c
15And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise.

16Men swear by someone greater than themselves, 
and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. 
17So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear 
to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. 
18Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, 
we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. 
20where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf.



Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth 
and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” 
(which is done in the body by human hands)— 
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, 
excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, 
without hope and without God in the world. 
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away 
have been brought near by the blood of Christ...

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Dear Sir of Summer Sorrow

 

For me the end of summer/September is always bittersweet!
Because summer, always full of much to do,
 always flies by far too quickly 
and September feels a little like the Season of Looking Back
at the Summer of Life.
But autumn hastens too, 
so let's pursue its precious purpose 
with thankful gladness before it is gone!

Below, pages from the book
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady



Dear sir of summer sorrow
Dear ma’am if I may
There is no sweet tomorrow
To bring back yesterday

Futile to while the hour
In bittersweet lament
None can restore the flower
Of yester-summer spent

To everything a season
Soft-slipping out of reach
To every day a Reason
To learn what it would teach

To pay careful attention
To what soon disappears
Into the blue dimension
Of ageless yesteryears 

Because autumn’s wayfaring
Soon hastens through our skin
Let’s linger in its bearing
Ere winter closes in

© Janet Martin


Eccles.3:1-8

To everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under heaven:

2a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to break down and a time to build,

4a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6a time to search and a time to count as lost,

a time to keep and a time to discard,

7a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.


Ecclesiastes 7:14
In the day of prosperity be joyful,
 but in the day of adversity consider: 
God also hath set the one over against the other,
 to the end that man should find nothing after him.

Monday, September 26, 2022

Warriors of Poetry

 

My, my but life/love can be a hard-fought Poem!

Sometimes the empty page mocks the Poet
where frontline/first line footage thunders
like an unanswered prayer!


Each morning is like an empty page
waiting the Poem of Today.


First daylight's swift splash of sunrise has yielded\to just plain Rain Splash!


What will Ink and Quill spill today?


There is much more than meets the page
Of ink-blood left to spill
Surrender, facing center stage
Wears so much rebel still

Between the brute force of desire
And Wonder’s work-day frame
Smolder the embers of a fire
Font yet must fan to flame

Duty and beauty spar and meld
Like diamond-dazzled dust
While angst of prayer-answers withheld
Mold scaffoldings of trust

Sometimes a rhyme’s futility
Mocks the poet at war
With the very same enemy
That Eve did not ignore

My, my, the bloom of love can smart
The thorn that holds the rose
Can rip a hole right through the heart
With what God only knows

The fancy footwork of farewell
Kicks at the pricks; where verse
Is not enough to quench or quell
The blessing (or the curse)

Where age old agonies persist
And ink cannot assuage
The oceanic weight of mist
Waiting to spill to page

…as so much more than we can see
Roars through frontlines of air
While warriors of poetry
Must choose which hues to snare


© Janet Martin


Psalm 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God; 
and renew a right spirit within me.













Saturday, September 24, 2022

With Joy Still Intact



Singing the praises of September-Fall's Glory this morning!
Happy First Autumn Saturday of 2022!

Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; 
the world, and they that dwell therein.




From molds of bronze and blue and gold September’s daybreak spills
An aura from Another World steeps treetops, fields and hills
In deep green woodland diadems, stained-glass-like fragments gleam
In ditches scarlet hawkweed gems and purple aster stream 

From welkin wellsprings, wonder, like a drum roll, stirs the heart
As earth and heavens thunder with first autumn’s works of art
Delight dines on Sublime Arrangements, Beauty’s buffet stacked
In spite of summertime’s estrangements, with joy still intact

The sun is like a trumpet heralding Mercy’s embrace
The world wrapped in a blanket unfurled from the throne of grace
Where, no matter the season, we are part and parcel of
The very humbling reason of God’s everlasting love

How tender is the awe of mourning/morning where Past’s ashes strew
While splendor never stops adorning earth with Heaven’s woo
September’s paint brush hovers while fall’s thrilling Prelude plays
Where joy never recovers from Creation’s constant praise

© Janet Martin








Friday, September 23, 2022

Hymn of Today



How oft it seems my heart is torn
Twixt want and wonder's 'How?'
While from wellsprings of morn to morn
Mercy renews Love's Vow

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; 
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
Jer.31:3

Yet I call this to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22Because of the loving devotionb of the LORD 
we are not consumed,
for His mercies never fail.
23They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness!
24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”
Lam.3:21-24

It was one of those mornings where the knowledge of Hope
grappled with the Anchor; where the heart's cables groaned 
beneath the ache and weight of creature-care,
where there was but one thing remaining; prayer
as Mercy Renewed broke through the darkness!
Hallelujah!

The sunrise like a mighty metaphor...





On shores of hurt and hunger yon doors of daybreak part
Where wars of want and wonder vex body, mind and heart
Where anguish and elation in constant conflict vie
A vexing combination of intent and reply

Before soon slips to After; twixt What Was and Will Be
Time’s roar of tears and laughter pours through humanity
In stunning revelation; nobody left intact
Where no imagination can void matters of fact

Faith and fear, hope and heartache, desire and despair
A smorgasbords of choices, we partake of its fare
Where today hinged to morrow, is like life’s quintessence
Of love’s joy hinged to sorrow, of choice to consequence

Where whatever we weather, more weather waits to be
Where we are altogether bound for more than we see
Where the glory of living is not in what we get
But in the sacred giving earnest heed to The Yet

Of what is sure and certain, still waiting in the wake
Until death’s lowered curtain unveils what is at stake
Until the holy thunder of Last Breath sails the sea
Twixt Shores of Want and Wonder and Vast Eternity

Through doors of Divine Mercy, to shores of you and me
New morning shines with berths of fresh opportunity
Where the grace of the Giver holds Judgment’s bar at bay
He strums the strings that quiver with hope’s/love's hymn of Today

© Janet Martin

Eph.3:14-21
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, 
to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; 
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints 
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
 that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly
 above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus 
throughout all ages, world without end.
 Amen.

This song premiered on YouTube half an hour ago!
How unbelievably fitting!! 
I weep and leap for joy!
Oh God, I praise you again!




Thursday, September 22, 2022

Of Spent Summer or Of Summer Spent

 Happy First Day of Fall 







The hour is upon us
Where bower, fen and dell
Are laden with the onus
Of flowering farewell

The season of Spent Summer
Like an ocean of stars
Hangs soft upon the tremor
Of autumn’s kindled bars

In thrum of shadow-dapples
In rum-colored remains
In sums of plums and apples
And wild aster-fringed lanes

In diamond studded fretwork
Of gossamer design
Where spider’s artful network
Dazzles shrubs, gates and vines

In countless ways and wonders
Of teeming crook and crease
Earth’s quiet canvas thunders
With many a masterpiece

In Cana lily taper
Brandishing scarlet flares
In leaves, like gilt-edged paper
A Fine Author prepares

In 'toxicating scents of
Ginger, cinnamon, cloves
In foraged storage boxes
For sweaters, scarves, hats, gloves

In zinnia pomp and splendor
In bossy blue jay shriek
In contemplative candor
Of truths time cannot tweak

In hunts for garden treasure
Of Yukon gold and such
In savoring the measure
Of moments meeting/meting touch

In revamped whims and wishes
In sun-glossed tassels tossed
With Jack Frost's first soft kisses
And roses summer lost

The hour is upon us
Where the gleam in Time’s gaze
Stokes a sacred awareness
Of man’s flower-like days

© Janet Martin

...and what a stunning debut to the first day of fall!









Wednesday, September 21, 2022

The Way a Summer Disappears

 

Happy (Sad) Last Day of Summer
 (Insert brave smile😢)

(Ignore date on cover of slideshow of a very
lovely last day of summer!))





It is as old as smiles and tears
The way a summer disappears
The way a bud unfolds bloom-art
The way a baby steals a heart
The way the voyage of the sun
Knows when another day is done
The way dust settles and crowds fade
After the last inning is played
A flit of yellow butterfly
A bitty bee buzz-buzzing by
A silver diamond-sparkle splash
A bright pink popsicle mustache 
A wave washing the sandy beach
Corn on the cob, a dripping peach
A whisper of leaf-lullaby
A spark that spirals to the sky
A ripple on a turquoise lake
A candle on a birthday cake
A brown-eyed Susan fringed footpath
A grand illusion aftermath
A picnic lunch, a cup of tea
A swing ride high as high can be
A puddle spangled with raindrops
A muddle of mothers and tots
A meadow('s) lark, a cricket's trill
A golf ball rolling down the hill
A shadow-stippled, stubbled slope
A tug-of-war twixt hurt and hope
(And always, always, autumn wins)
Wheelbarrow heaped with squeals and grins
A dance in crocs, flipflops, bare feet
An echo-Rembrandt, bittersweet 
A task-drill run rife with Reward
A basket filled with 'thank-you Lord'
A canning pot, a kitchen, hot
Garden-fare rush, ready or not
A mellowing of green and gold
Of aches and pangs of growing old
As loss and love and longing brim
A dahlia-hallelujah hymn
A happiness that overflows
Like petals from a withered rose 
A boo-boo, blisters, band-aids, bugs
A hello kiss and goodbye hugs
A hard day’s work, a holiday
Is how a summer slips away

© Janet Martin





Established Evidence

Gen.1:11-12

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, 
whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, 
and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: 
and God saw that it was good.

Gal.6:7-9
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; 
but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: 
for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

A grower's chief delight is the fruit and bloom laden plant!
At harvest, as the fruition of labor fills orchards,
gardens, vineyards and fields with yield,
it stirs humble, holy awareness, once again
to the sacredness of planting season!

I am so happy the farmer next door planted soybeans in the field beside our property.
For years this field was a grazing pasture for cattle,
but the new owner keeps his herds inside and so for the first time
since we live here (33years) I have enjoyed the evolving beauty of soybeans close-up!















...and last but not least, Today!


We will reap what we sow
The tree, known by its fruit
Choice-seeds that fall do not stay small
But soon take sacred root

Oh God, you are not mocked
Stir in our hands and hearts
The imminence of recompense
That harvest time imparts

Where the spirit and flesh
At constant odds, contend
With what we sow, for it will grow
Tis futile to pretend

Because the seed reveals
The essence of its kind
Thus, what we plant is what will grant
The harvest that we bind

Ah, even as we reap
Seeds fall; God, help us see
With reverence the evidence
Of fruit upon the tree

© Janet Martin

p.s. a reader just mentioned hopefully I will get a picture of the harvest to complete the circle! 
I sure hope so!


Luke 6:44
For every tree is known by its own fruit.
For men do not gather figs from thorns,
nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.