We Will Go Forth (and a few more Thursday Thoughts)

We cannot outlive the Unknown

or challenges we face 

But look, each moment's steppingstone

is anchored in God's grace

Faith's substance of things we hope for

will someday rend the veil

Revealing the complete splendor

Of love that did not fail

***

The sunless stretch continues...

not sure what happened to last week's forecast for this week's yellow...

It could certainly have the potential to dampen our spirits if we let it!

But...

If we would fixate on the weather we might be quite glum

It's been a dose of dreary, drippy, damp, sunless ho-hum

But love and life are so much more than covers of a book

So much of what is written is hidden until we look!

Then as we turn the pages where God's goodness overflows

We find ourselves quite speechless, awed by blessings He bestows 

***

Seeds are so very, very small

Sometimes we doubt their clout

And dare to wonder where they fall

...until they start to sprout 

Seeds look like nothing much at first

Mere crumbs, mundane and mute

But from the crumb, when it has burst

Comes all manner of fruit 

Seeds seem to be too slight and slow    

To hold much harm or good

But as the sprout begins to grow

Seed's clout is understood 

***

Our worlds are often mirrored in the shimmer of a tear

Or lightened by the laughter of someone we love so dear

Or sweetened by the banter of a breeze, a child, a bird

Or brightened by the candle of a kind and gentle word

Hard knocks are often softened by a handshake and a smile

Making the world that shimmers in a tear, so worth its isle/while

***

Tick-tock tempo laps the shoreline of  a winter afternoon 

Like the summer-blue momentum of lake-lyrics lazy tune 

Like a breeze undresses tresses of its leaf-shaped souvenirs 

Tick-tock tempo falls and rises until winter disappears

***  

This morning's foggy shroud inspired the beginning of this poem...

We will go forth then, you and I

The view of what yet waits withheld

Like a masterpiece made of sky

Vaulted above the mist-veiled veldt

While the clocks unrelenting toll

Unfurls and collects, synchronized

In breath-sized billows as they roll

Through hopes salvaged from dreams capsized

Undoing what we thought we knew

With sudden, foreign points of view

We will go forth because, my dear

No choice awaits but to proceed

Faith spurs us on and spars with fear

As scars forge wisdom’s crown and creed

Where delight, like a diamond stud

Dazzles dark backdrops of dismay

Where hope, like an unbroken bud

Reminds us of blooms held at bay

Cheering us on as vast unknowns

Unfold flowers and steppingstones

We will go forth but not alone

Goodness and mercy follow still

Where thoroughfares of grin-and-groan

Are never all down or uphill

The valley where shadows are cast

Like creases in a color-world

While the Master pieces the Past

With present grace on grace unfurled

His able Hands cradle the sky

We will go forth thence, you and I

© Janet Martin

(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

2 Cor.5:7