Wednesday, July 3, 2024

This is the Life


'This is the life!' I sometimes find myself repeating,
as the raw brunt of it rushes away another day midst work and play
..as I sense the precious shimmer of summer skimming
 the surface of sod and skin, while sweeping souls
in Rites of Passage back to the Giver of life.
Sometimes my breath is stolen anew
by the re-realization of the brevity of Innocence
as I watch my grandchildren growing up far faster, even
than our children did ๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ’ž
resulting in renewed earnest endeavor, by the grace of God,
not to take a moment for granted,
not to take holiness for granted but pursue it with
unthwartable purpose!

Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness,
without which no one will see the Lord.
15See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God,
and that no root of bitterness springs up to cause trouble and defile many.
16See to it that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau,
who for a single meal sold his birthright.
17For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing,
he was rejected.
He could find no ground for repentance,
though he sought the blessing with tears.

25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks...

This is the life!! May we, by God's grace
make the sacred most of Today!




Cookies are ready, calls Grandma


...and they all come running!! ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ’—



This is the life; the good and bad, the happy-sad of hold-let-go
This the life; the grim and glad, the weathering of yes and no
Hello-goodbye, we laugh, we cry, while growing older by the hour
While learning, teaching, crawling, reaching, planting, reaping, sunshine-show’r

This the life, the joy and strife, of traveling a winding path
Of depth, of height, of gloom, delight, of day and night’s long aftermath
Of touch and taste soon laid to waste, of slowing haste to hear the sound
Of Footsteps in the garden where the place we stand is holy ground

…where commonplace is full of grace and nothing stays the same for long
Where happiness is saying ‘yes’ to righteousness and ‘no’ to wrong
Where gray and gold and heat and cold and work and rest skim sea and sod
Weathering frames where death soon claims this little life that leads to God

…this is the life God grants, a gift of song and dance, of loss and pain
Where seasons swirl, where little girl and boy cannot a tot remain
This is the life; morning, noon, night, how swift God’s gifted seasons glim
Where every life is running rife with Rites of Passage back to Him

© Janet Martin



Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Do Not Be Deceived


The antidote to deception is knowing what is true/truth!

How vital for (professing) mature believers to
walk in truth, living as irreproachable role models,
not authoring confusion!


Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
(from Jesus prayer (for us) in the garden of Gethsemane,
 just before He died for us)

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you…

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? 
Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters,
 nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers,
 nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.…

Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good character."
 34Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; 
for some of you are ignorant of God.
 I say this to your shame.…

This poem was inspired by my Scripture reading today, 1 Cor. 15,
as well as a few paragraphs from the final chapters
 in the book George Muller of Bristol 




Half-truths will hurt the hearer more than we can comprehend
God, help us handle correctly, the truth that does not bend

To understate matters of fact by gentling truth with lies
To mollify its impact, is a deadly compromise

To take the tempter's doubting stance of 'did God really say?'
Leads into disobedience; instead, we ought to pray 

Deception is a foe that coils in enticing faรงade
The victor of soul-spoils unless we know the Word of God 

Oh, do not be deceived; truth does not shift or sway or die
Truth is safely believed; God's gift on which we can rely 

The wise discreetly strive to speak the truth in clearest ways
Careful, lest someone who is weak misinterprets, then strays 

Truth is not complicated; Word on which we can depend
Truth, unintimidated and trustworthy to the end

God, make us conscientious, humbly striving to be true  
For the Tempter's pretentious cunning, cannot altar You  

 © Janet Martin

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 17:17
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

1 Pet.5:8-9
Be sober-minded and alert. 
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, 
seeking someone to devour. 
9Resist him, standing firm in your faith and in the knowledge
 that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing 
the same kinds of suffering.


Ode for Summer's Poets

 

Where meals are gathered from a garden-green charcuterie
Oh my, but fresh-picked goodness garners five stars, hard to beat


In simple supper-salad satisfaction guarantee
Where summer's poets thank the Lord for poems they can eat

Where golding wheat field billows like an ocean ebbs and flows...



Where overhead the sky beckons in bottomless blue pose/prose...

Where flower gardens toss a lure, sure to delight the sigh
Of summer's poets enchanted by petaled color-splurge...


Where bees are buried to their knees inside each nectar-fount...


Where golding wheat field billows like an ocean ebbs and flows
Where rural routes are fringed with wild lupine and chamomile
Where overhead the sky beckons in bottomless blue pose/prose
To summer's poets hypnotized by ballads that beguile

Where finding happiness is easier in sweet July
Where daybreak rolls across earth’s shoreline in a coral surge
Where flower gardens toss a lure, sure to delight the sigh
Of summer's poets enchanted by petaled color-splurge

Where bees are buried to their knees inside each nectar-fount
Where there are blooms enough to satisfy the thirst of all
Where the Creator knows how to stoke a syllabic count
From summer's poets eager to compose a madrigal

Where an air of contentment settles like dew-heady dust
Where clover fields yield a perfumed playground for butterflies
Where every backroad rouses a wild streak of wanderlust
In summer's poets looking for a country paradise

Where meals are gathered from a garden-green charcuterie
Oh my, but fresh-picked goodness garners five stars, hard to beat
In simple supper-salad satisfaction guarantee
Where summer's poets thank the Lord for poems they can eat

Where we hop out of bed to watch the sun come up at five
Where we linger till ten to feel dusk’s symphony immerse
Our senses, where best reasons we are glad to be alive
Keen summer's poets pressed for time to tame them into verse

Where July is an arms-wide-open, welcome-home embrace
Where shadow-pools beneath the maple tree are dark and deep
Where lavish looms spin lilies, lavender and Queen Ann’ s lace
While summer's poets smile and snare fond mementos to keep

© Janet Martin

Where we linger till ten to feel dusk’s symphony immerse
Our senses,...








Monday, July 1, 2024

Time, Precious Time


Happy July!
Glorious, sun-drenched blue-sky July!
The gardener's playground,
A child's splash of freedom from school-routines
A poet's (and farmer's) paradise 
of early daybreak and long, slow, dewy, dusty dusk!


In Canada we are celebrating Canada Day!
There is so much about this country I love and so much I mourn.
The faith/Rock it was built upon is being boldly trampled underfoot.
When a house or country is not built on the Rock but on sand, 
how great is the fall of it!
A country is only as strong as its people.
A people are only as strong as their faith.
Faith is only as strong as the Thing that fortifies it;
 how much we fear/revere the one true God

Prov.9:10-12
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11For through wisdomb your days will be multiplied,
and years will be added to your life.
12If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage;
but if you scoff, you alone will bear the consequences.

A cool, foggy beginning to July!




June's farewell dusk was a beauty to behold!






Precious Time is one thing we all have in common;
How much of it we have is up to Giver.
What we do with it is up to us!


Time is bestowed, not in lump sums, but sacred breath by breath
Only God knows how long before its lease succumbs to death
Where it is up to you and me to choose to use full-well
Each new day’s opportunity, before dusk’s tolling bell

Time’s moment-measure kindles clocks, and grants so much at stake
Where stepping stones and stumbling blocks are scattered in its wake
Where eyes and ears and feet and hands, (not commonplace at all)
Are instruments that Thought commands, while countries rise and fall

Time, precious time; a twinkling star filled with fleeting ado
Where what we think and who we are is up to me and you
Take heed; Thought is unmolded in accountability
After the tent is folded that harbours eternity

Time, precious time lowers a stage hinged to a solemn Door
On this side we engage in proving Who/who we most adore
But on the other side of it, after dusk’s final toll
Time, precious Time will be the flit that keeps all but the Soul


© Janet Martin

Matt.7:24-27
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them,
 I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
 and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,
 shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; 
and it fell: and great was the fall of it.