After Forgiveness...

  PAD challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

 

After the bold, bare facts of love have etched their indelible knell

Like landmarks on a glove that pulses with worlds too complex to spell

After the cold, hard truth smacks us in faces once brave with fool’s scorn

After the heart has weathered being stretched, crushed, broken, hunger-torn

We learn to live, to love and give instead of scheming how to get

The aftertaste of wonder lingers; hope soft-mingled with regret

After we reach much higher than the ways that naked eye can see

After Forgiveness, God’s grace hones from bones of pride, humility

© Janet Martin

The Hope Of Man

 Sometimes when discouragement's condemnation threatens to deaden hope,

Sometimes when I say yep when oh, I should have answered 'nope'

Sometimes when I believe the lies of hope's vile enemy

I bow my head and lift my eyes...to Calvary

...to hear once more from days of yore the final declaration

Of "it is finished" as He bore and conquered death's damnation

and nothing and no one can alter Mercy's saving grace

Through Jesus Christ God's only Son whose love/life took our/death's place

The ways of man since Time began

Are not hard to predict

First Eve believed and was deceived

By folly’s rhetoric

Where we in turn must also learn

How disobedience

When we are wise in our own eyes

Yields bitter recompense/consequence

Aha, aha, the Time-tried law

Of lust and pride confirms

How without love our motives prove

We are all filthy worms

And without grace, ah, who could face

Death’s cold and morbid dread

The blood of Christ, love’s sacrifice

For sinner’s ransom shed

 Love’s Master plan, the hope of man

The hope of man assured

Through merit of a Saviour’s love

Upon a cross secured

Love’s uttermost becomes the boast

As Belief rends the tomb

Where ways of man since Time began

Would else lead to hell’s doom

© Janet Martin

Basking In Sonshine

A lot of us feel like basking in sunshine this bone-chilling time of year!

Thankfully we need no dollars or airplanes to bask in Sonshine each and every day!

Getting
Truth 

from the head

 to the heart 

is often the 

hard part, 

isn't it ?!

There is a world of difference between knowing and believing!
After a week where I fought brutal wars of self-condemnation and blame because action equals consequence etc. I was moved immensely as yesterday morning's message was summed up by the
encouraging 

reminder/

admonition 

that if we truly 

believe in the 

work on the 

cross we should

 'bask in God's

 forgiveness'! 

IT IS 

FINISHED!

Nothing 

and no one 

can change 

this! EVER!

Amen.

Hallelujah! 

Believe it!

Claim it.

The warlords of discord and condemnation never rest

But beat the drums of doom and gloom within the human breast

How hopeless, hope’s appeal where unbelief’s chief demons leer

And in the place of grace erect a monument of fear

How awful to adjust the love of God like pink play-doh

His Word is Truth and in it everything we need to know

The warlords of this world delight in vexing human race

With guilt and shame they heap the heart with blame instead of grace

What’s done is done; no one can change the past; no, not one bit

But ‘it is done’; Jesus, God’s Son once for all, declared it

The seal of His redemption none can break (though lies run rife)

‘Whosoever believes in Him receives eternal life’

Then, oh, how sweet the peace, when we release doubt’s damning rod

And accept without compromise, the promises of God

To bask in glorious Sonshine of forgiveness, full and free

And believe, once for all in the fullness of Calvary

The prison-guard of Self is hard to overcome until

We drink the Living Water and trust in the Author’s will

Then, slave becomes a servant; from death’s chains of torment freed

For if the Son has set you free, you will be free indeed

Do not despair; the ‘getting there’ is fraught with trip and fall

But God, through Jesus saves us, His forgiveness once for all

Then, glory-hallelujah, come what may, Promise prevails

And bids us bask in Sonshine of a love that never fails

© Janet Martin

 
Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. 

Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

John 1:17
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:17
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, 

 how much more will those who receive an abundance of grace 

and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
Romans 5:18
Therefore, just as one trespass brought condemnation for all men, 

so also one act of righteousness brought justification and life for all men.
Romans 5:21
so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness,

 to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Humbly Glad For The Love I've Had...

 Sometimes I play this song to others,

Sometimes I play it to myself😏

I have been loved

What can I say?

In spite of my failures and fumbles

And stumbles and grumbles

And glaring flaws

I’m loved anyway

So, I’ll be humbly glad

For the love I’ve had…

While my track-record

Of foibles grows fat

And I’m middle-age

And likely won’t change

I’ve been hated

For far less than that

© Janet Martin

A Half-Apology

Yesterday's prompt on PAD challenge was; write a forgiveness poem.

Here is a long over-due one to my family and friends!

(a poet's song to an almost-poem)😂

 

I'll ask for your forgiveness in advance

Because I know I will not change my ways

So if you would be good, could you perchance

Forgive my foible-garbled Poem-craze? 

I cannot change just for the sake of peace 

I'd rather look for new ways to impress

The whisper of a picture to the crease

That fills the face with poem-happiness

So, I'll ask your forgiveness in advance

And shake the poem-tree for all I'm worth

Who knows what waits in ink rhythm-and-dance

To fill your somber stance with poem-mirth

This is only a half-apology

Please excuse the audacity of it

For I am asking you to forgive me

For Something I do not intend to quit

Janet Martin~

Some Times...

 Sometimes '... I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  

 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;  

 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind 

and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  

What a wretched man I am! 

Rom.7:21-24

Yep, sometimes this passage just reaches out and slaps me in the face when I sure do deserve it!

But then it goes on to ask,
'Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  

²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!'

"Hallelujah!"

Nature's Artist is always looking to work wonders in our very human nature...it we let him!

Oh, it may seem, sometimes like God forgets or doesn’t hear

The ‘answer’ to a prayer, thin air and disappointment’s tear

Sometimes it feels like Mercy deals a blow where High Hope streamed

And teaches us humility in ways we never dreamed

Sometimes the demons we thought licked, return in sleek disguise

To tell us we were tricked into believing crafty lies

Then we flee to God’s Living Word to thwart the swords Doubt hurled

Greater is He within us than he that is in the world

Oh, it may seem, sometimes, that we fail far more than succeed

But our full-of-compassion-God is long-suff’ring indeed

He does not give what we deserve, though sometimes we complain

Redemption reaches down to lift us up to try again

Sometimes Faith’s Firm fidelity demands what seems unjust

A left-foot-right-foot march toward Hope’s Hierarchy of trust

While we rely on what we know, not on what we can see

And lean upon God’s promise of ‘grace sufficient for Thee’

Sometimes Goodness and Mercy wears a vexatious facade

The Moment more dominant than the endlessness of God

Then sometimes, as we wait upon the One who does not cease

He fills the emptiness of want with surrender, then peace

© Janet Martin