By God's Grace And For His Glory

I think we are learning there is still
SO much to learn through what we are learning!
Turning our eyes to Jesus like never quite before and seeing ourselves like never before...
prone to wander...in fear, anxiety, doubt, want, pride, selfishness, etc...

By God’s grace and for His glory Pray that we will learn to live

Not for foolish self’s mad dash of worry-riddled take and give

But with mercy as our mentor and with Heaven as our goal

Pray that we are meek contenders for the prize claimed by the soul

By the witness of forefathers by the same faith that was tried

By the storms that strew and shatter monuments of deadly pride

By yielding, not to the Doubter but to perfect promises

By the Inner, not the outer to secure true happiness

Pray that we learn to be kinder than we were in yester-days

Sometimes loss is the reminder that we need to reappraise

Reappraise mindset’s direction lest some flaw we overlook

No one is above correction or the Master’s pruning hook

By God’s grace and for His glory pray that we make this our quest

Soon the pages to the story we are writing will be pressed

Into Past’s vast recollection where pray, we have learned to live

With a more thankful reflection which God’s grace and glory give

© Janet Martin

Of Refreshed Footholds...

From the rising to the setting of the sun, 

the name of the LORD is praised.

Psalm 113:3

Finding a refreshed foothold on fathoms of endless deep

Day draws its waking breath in golden breadths of heaven’s sweep

The eloquence of moments spills without the gift of speech

Dawn, always laden with a sheaf of new lessons to teach

Today is always new, where we, never too old to learn

Are students, educated by the hand of no return

Where one’s wisdom increases not with easy song-and-dance

But by unequivocal truth that trips our arrogance

The seasoned way of seasons seeps through skylines and through skin

It does not cater to our whims of disgruntled chagrin

But woos the way it always has where highs and lows entwine

Into a labyrinth of tear-and-laughter grafted vine  

Let’s labour to be thankful to the Giver of our days

And not let longing rankle what should be a hymn of praise

From mercy-meted rising to the setting of the sun

Let’s turn want into worship for the war our Lord has won

© Janet Martin

Here's To Us (life's students)

 How swift those years when problems could be solved with a cuddle and kiss!

When houses were made out of shoe boxes without mortgages,

and dreams didn't need dollars...

(we're cleaning out closets and going through things that have been stored away for quite a while)

In ‘parenting’ one of the hardest tests for us is stepping back
as live-and learn begins, in our adult children
the grueling courses that we ourselves had/have…

 As we learn

Action=consequence,

Faith is hard and full of unanswered questions.
( Faith is the substance of things hoped for)

Numbers don’t lie

That happiness is not found in things

That pride goes before destruction.

That love is not always enough

That life really is short no matter how long it is!

That the small things are the big things 

That everyone eventually needs the Part that turns 'I' to 'we' 

That this too shall pass

That nothing takes the place of a kind word and helping hand.

Holding precedes the letting go

Joy is always hinged to sorrow

AND SO MUCH MORE!

So wherever we are in our live-and-learn courses
 here’s hoping we all seek direction/instruction
 from Someone who sees the whole picture,
while we still see 'through a glass darkly before face-to-face'

Here’s to the learning that we are all earning

Credits and scores never tendered to page

Here’s to hope’s reaches while time always teaches

We are all students no matter our age

Here’s to the pupil of passion or scruple

Stunned by the factors beyond our control

Here’s to a ledger without an eraser

Only God’s grace can absolve and console

Here’s to the dawning of our keep on ‘on-ing’

Never give up in spite of kicks and stings

Here’s to the scholar of dream-dust or dollar

Happiness happens in love’s simplest things

Here’s to the wedding of moment’s soft-threading

Past-present-future’s determined outcome

Here’s to the holding that precedes the folding

That seals the tally of Time’s total sum

© Janet Martin

Well We Know...or Are Learning To Know

Want without Jesus,will never be filled

Its tempest of longing will never be stilled

Acts. 4:12

 Salvation is found in no one else, 

for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind 

by which we must be saved."

Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, 

because He will save His people from their sins."
Acts 10:43
All the prophets testify about Him 

that everyone who believes in Him 

receives forgiveness of sins through His name."

A song to satisfy Want...

 

This is how God showed his love among us:
He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:9

Well we know want wars with gladness

Haunts the hope that shores the heart

Daunts desire with deep sadness

And dejection’s stinging smart

Well the struggle for survival

Without God hones hard defeat

Joy, a sympathetic rival

Or a laughing hypocrite

Well we know we know so little

Save what we learn from the past

While the frond of youth grows brittle

As the bond of Truth holds fast

Well the trouble we encounter

Taunts the apple of Want's gain

Faith subjects us to a future

Where sight-blind we peer in vain

Well we know Want’s wage is worry

If we forge forth without God

His great timing none can hurry

Beneath Mercy’s bitter rod

Well we know Want is oft smitten

With the shallow scope of gaze

While the prize of hope is hidden

In God’s higher, perfect ways

Well we know heads full of knowledge

Fill rooms with noise-metered mist

If the heart is but a college

For the want-worn narcissist

© Janet Martin

Because Not Everything That Glitters Is Gold

Desire without knowledge is not good—

 how much more will hasty feet miss the way!

Prov.19:2

I got this cute little box filled with sweets from a friend for my birthday...I agree, 

Life is a beautiful 'ride' but certainly not without hills, spills, bumps and bruises!
...and oh, those hasty leaps that we have a long time after to recover/learn from😐
Where would we be without a patient and merciful Father?!

Desire without knowledge is disaster’s recipe

This life is like a college, for students of vast degree

To leap without first looking is a sad way to crash-land

We should learn how to study with a shovel in our hand

The broken road we traverse is stream-lined with white-flagged graves

The surface of the Present does not showcase battles braved

Or how surrender, after stubborn will tenders its strife

Hoists up a tear-stained trophy, scarred with Want’s hard knocks of life

The fortune of our follies, love, can cause us to despair

But Mercy is a patient Father; none else can compare

And though the leap we took without first looking yields its fruit

God helps us (if we trust) to work it out for our good

….where we learn, after leaping that reaping is bittersweet

And anything worth keeping is not found on Easy Street

That the harvest of haste does not taste at all like we planned

…the sparkles of Desire like a big, mouthful of sand

© Janet Martin