Gold-diggers

We learn from little ones to mine for moment-gold!

None can afford to make less than the most of what we hold

The secret to true happiness is found in moment-gold

Through time’s incessant change we find some things remain intact

The more that we are thankful for, the less we seem to lack

The season after planting and before harvest runs rife

With that which appears common but becomes the best of life  

Where we, merchants of moment-gold are on a spending spree

…a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity

Futile to fret about the Yet that begets come-what-may

These little girls with pretty curls soon up and fly away

And curious boys so full of noise and wonder’s joys grow tall

Honing a mother’s hunger in the hurry of it all

So much to learn in the return of what time tries to teach

Where wisdom that we earn comes from lessons long out of reach

Where happiness we find must still be mined from moment-gold

Where it is not too late to make the most of what we hold

(last verse optional)

(the pitter-patter of bare feet soon paves a lost highway

futile to gaze down airborne streets through haze of yesterday

futile to pine for prizes pressed in morrow's mystic mold

better to make the most of today's precious moment-gold)

© Janet Martin

  Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have,

 because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Heb.13:5

Lest We Search Earth's Plain In Vain

 This poem is a collection of Truths I must often remind myself about

esp. on an 'off' day! 

 

Until we claim God’s promises as Love's Ultimate plan

Until we crave and cling to His Word like a dying man

Until we keep it in our hearts to be our hope and guide

And realize ‘it was for me’ Jesus suffered and died

Until we open up His Book with more than Duty’s rod

Then we will search earth’s plain in vain to find the peace of God

Until we sing his praises from the bottom of our hearts

Until His grace amazes us to thought’s uttermost parts

Until we see the agony he bore on our behalf

As something more than religion’s Platonic Autograph

Until it drenches our souls the way rain drenches sod

Then we will search earth’s plain in vain to find the love of God

Until we bear the yoke He gives with kind humility

Content, no matter what life is, ‘because He lives in me’

Until we learn to turn anxiety and fear to trust

Until we value more than this brief score of dust to dust

Until His mercy, new each morning makes hope’s hearts applaud

Then we will search earth’s plain in vain to find the joy of God

© Janet Martin

Psalm 145:3

 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

Romans 11:33
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways!

Job 9:10
He does great and unfathomable things, wonders without number.

Job 11:7
Can you fathom the deep things of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?

Psalm 86:10
For You are great and perform wonders; You alone are God.
Psalm 95:3
For the LORD is a great God, a great King above all gods.
Psalm 96:4
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.
Psalm 135:5
For I know that the LORD is great; our Lord is above all gods.
Psalm 147:5
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.
Psalm 150:2
Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him for His excellent greatness.
Isaiah 40:28
Do you not know? Have you not heard? the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will never grow faint or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.

Lord, Help Us Learn To Be Content...

 I'm feeling blissfully content this morning after dreaming that in an extra-generous spurt I offered to lend our home to a neighbour and her family while we rented an old farm-house down the road.

Hastily we bid good-bye to the house and garden and moved our things out as they moved in.

 But as the dust settled I stood in a strange stained-wall-papered room not being able to recall why I thought this was an exciting idea;

we paying rent while I was willing to give our house for free, 

and suddenly I wondered anxiously how I was going to explain this hasty move to hubby 

when he got home!

I woke as I was staring out through an old storm-window wishing for nothing but this; 

I just want to go back home to our old place!

With what we’re lent, Lord, help us be content and not to pine

For what we hold soon fades and falls like flowers from a vine

The beckoning of dawn is soon the reckoning of dusk

The zephyr, warm and giddy blazes trails to gales cold-brusque

Therefore with what we have we ought to learn to be content

The Past is like an urn that cups the ash of seasons spent/moments lent

In flickers ripe with life that sweep from east to westward bars

A wink upon a brink where pink dissolves in ink-set stars

As ebb and flow of highs and low kisses and scars our reach

Lord, help us learn to be content in what Your love would teach

© Janet Martin

(and remembering Normandy/D-day)

 

He who has little and wants less is richer

than he who has much and wants more.

It's not how much we have,

but how much we enjoy that

makes happiness

~Charles Spurgeon~

Five-Foot-Three...

 Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be tall.

Especially when I'm stretching to snag something off the top kitchen-shelf with a wooden spoon😉

I was born five inches too short

To fulfill fantasy

Because the Good Lord saw it fit

To make me five foot three

So, though I need a stool to reach

The highest kitchen shelf

I’ll be as thankful as can be

Because I am myself

And though, foolishly, I admit

I sometimes envy those

Who always seem ‘the perfect fit’

For any style of clothes

I do not care to waste away

On wish-futility

But make the most of every day

That takes my five-foot three

…so when I think my height a curse

As some far shelf I rue

I’ll remember it could be worse

I could be five-foot-two

© Janet Martin

Want Is Like A Wagon...

Want is like a wagon that we heap with wish and whim

Hope is like a hunger that we know will lead to Him

Want is like a weight we carry without joy or peace

Hope is like the wings that bear us to where Want will cease

Want enslaves us with the cravings that chain us to loss

Hope makes servants of those willing to suffer love’s cross

Want rivals twixt need and greed, its pleading to fulfill

Hope is always humbly fixed and yielded to God’s will

© Janet Martin

1 Tim.6:3-10

NIV

These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.