Harbinger to the Feast

Ps.139:23-24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

Since 2019 our church family has suffered many

sudden losses and very deep grief and comfort,.

The above verses have become my heart's cry

as I call on the name of God,

as we learn to wait on the Lord

without answers to His thoughts and ways...

as we truly, humbly learn the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane;

Luke 22:42

yet not my will, but yours be done.”

But in our suffering God has never failed!

Ps.68:19

Blessed be the Lord,

Who daily loads us with benefits,

The God of our salvation! Selah

Matt.6:26

Look at the birds of the air; 

they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,

 and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Luke 21:28

 Now when these things begin to happen,

look up and lift up your heads, 

because your redemption draws near.”

Lift up your head;

Do not despair

The fruit beyond the famine waits

God grants the bread

Of answered prayer

To we who hold out hallowed plates

Until the hour

is fulfilled

And Christ alone is our plea

Until His power

Has instilled

Worship’s unmarred humility

And dashed to naught

Want’s willful pride

That hinders the blessing withheld

Until each thought

Is self-denied

And every erring appeal felled...

Hark! Catch the hum

Of rumbling trains

Heaped with the fruit of yielded will  

No lin’gring crumb

Of Self remains

To stay the feast God joys to spill 

Janet Martin

Proverbs 17:3
A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, 

but the LORD is the tester of hearts.