Showing posts with label treasure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label treasure. Show all posts

Monday, October 2, 2023

(Precious) Pearl-Storm...

Once more, moments, like precious pearls, mete morning’s gilt-edged gauze... 


Once more, moments, like precious pearls, mete morning’s gilt-edged gauze
Fresh opportunity unfurls its thunderous applause
For better or for worse, dawn’s river rushes earth and sky
Where we will bless or curse the Giver by how we reply
And we will surely influence some soul we touch today
With kindness or indifference, by what we do and say

Soon blush and bronze of daybreak dons workaday shoes and hues
Moment-pearls spill and roll and bounce through prayers, hopes, dreams and dues
Through thought, through lips and fingertips, pearl-pulsed payoff impends
As time’s fleet treasure-measure slips to profound dividends
A wonder-storm of glints and swirls; we groan and grin and gasp
Ah, life; a subsequence of pearls that glimmer through our grasp

Before the torrential downpour of moment-pearls subsides
And silence tempers the uproar of morn-to-eventides
Let’s live as if today were love’s final pearl-spending spree
Before God unveils troves that prove the heart's fidelity
Let’s pay more earnest heed to the accounting that awaits
Our words and deeds when life’s precious moment-pearl-storm abates

© Janet Martin

Luke 12:34
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Today's workaday shoes are about to get gloriously garden-dirty!😊





Saturday, November 26, 2022

Reminder to Remember


Recently I heard this comment (quoted loosely);
The saddest life of all is giving our all 
to something that turns out in the end,
to be completely and utterly worthless/meaningless.

The author of the book of Ecclesiastes
 ponders the meaning of life, finds great wealth 
and tastes every heart's desire
only to come to this awesome conclusion 
after realizing everything in this world is ultimately vanity...

Now all has been heard;
    here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
    for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
    including every hidden thing,
    whether it is good or evil.

The beauty of the earth is a glimpse-of-Heaven backdrop
to the brutality of the battle of wills
between man and God/God and man






(This reminder to remember was written to myself
and anyone else who can relate to the battle of want
between what is temporal and what is eternal)
...also a bit of a continuance along the lines of thought
that inspired yesterday's poem
 
Sometimes the guise of lesser prizes we are yearning for
Can blind us to the binding gait of those who’ve gone before
The price we are willing to pay, sometimes not worth the cost
For something that will fade away in death, forever lost

Sometimes we grapple with apples of want’s eye, and we miss
The treasure that transcends the pleasure of This transient kiss
For time's measure of moments melts like snowflakes in the sun
While warp and weft of seasons weaves and unravels as one

Sometimes the diamond in our dreams is not as it appears
The pinnacle doffed of its gleam as its procurement nears
The glamor of achievement and the clamor of applause
A trophy of bereavement on ashes of futile cause

God, help us to remember you behold and know our need
Help us note and surrender gloating gods of pride and greed
Help us guard against pitfalls decked in visual appeal
And help us not to put our trust in what we think and feel

God, open our heart’s eyes as we seek and search Your Word
So, stepping-stones and stumbling blocks are not confused and blurred
Remind us, not one jot or tittle is hidden from You
And all will give account when this little lifetime is through

God, keep our eyes upon a prize beyond all mortal ken
For the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, amen
Help us put on Your whole armor, with humble, sacred breath
Lest we stray to a way that seems right, but its end is death

© Janet Martin

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Earthen Treasure Chests

 Christ, Our Hope in Life and Death


Therefore we do not lose heart.
Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
18 while we do not look at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary,
but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Cor.4:16-18


I think I shared this scripture verse a week ago,
but it is in today's Daily Bread Devotion
as well as much needed encouragement
where suffering does not seem to take a break in this broken world.
But, for we who have placed our faith in Jesus
we do not lose heart!


This afternoon I will go to the visitation
for one of the young moms I did childcare for briefly
before she started working from home because of Covid-19,
before being diagnosed with cancer in the spring.
Our hearts are broken for this young family!
Will you hold them (Dana's family) in your prayers??

While the outward man wastes away
As seasons take their toll
Still, we are renewed day by day
In fathoms of the soul

And, though we cannot keep at bay
The hardships we must bear
Within these vessels made of clay
God puts His Treasure there

So that the excellence we boast
Is not of us, but He
Who gave for man, love’s uttermost
To set cursed sinners free

Then though the outward wastes away
Beneath affliction’s rod
Within these vessels made of clay
Shines the treasure of God

© Janet Martin

2 Cor.4:7
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, 
that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.



Friday, August 13, 2021

Moment-ous Measure, (Time's Good Treasure)


This poem, Like Sparkles on a Surging Swell, came up on my blog-dashboard
 this morning because someone clicked on it,
amplifying my annual August lament...
as summer's fading fringes become more apparent

Then my sister sent me this photo of a long-ago vacation.
 It fell out from behind a drawer as she cleaned out the cupboards to prepare for a kitchen-reno
(all these kids now dealing with the season of young adulthood with all its challenges and joys )

Emotion-ocean 
begged 
to be poured into 
poem

Moments murmur, full of summer flowing out of reach and sight
Sometimes seems like dreams-come-true slip through our bearing overnight
Laughter ripples, echoes stipple streams once rushing raw and rife
Where an ocean of emotion rolls across shorelines of life

Moment-measure spills in treasure that soon other moments steal
Such a touch-and-taste-good-pleasure, sparkling like a rhinestone-reel
Carousels of fare-thee-well twirl where hello’s fond friendships meld
With time’s tinctures painting pictures of seasons so briefly held

Momentum of here-they-come and there-they-go, oh, me-oh-my
Sparks a hunger for the younger afternoons of mid-July
Yet, soft-kindles, with what dwindles in the middle of lament
Awed awareness of the rareness of today’s precious present

Moments meter bitter, sweeter, who knows what they hold in store
Makes us cherish what will perish on dusk’s silhouette-scaped shore
While the Giver of this river full of Time’s momentous tow
Brightens duty with the beauty of what new moments bestow

Moments marble gold and purple with more muted shades of gray
Bygone's coffers brim with offers on breath-banners of new day
Longing wrangles with what tangles heart-strings into Wonder's Birth
Teaching us to treasure the good measure of a moment's worth

© Janet Martin

Bygone's coffers brim with offers on breath-banners of new day...



Friday, March 26, 2021

The Truth About Things


This poem was inspired partly by this morning's Bible Love Note
and partly by spending a few hours yesterday burning
brush picked up and raked form the yard...

'At death all Things will turn to dust and ash'

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: 
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Eccles.12:7

Truth does not shift its weight from foot to foot
Or like a shadow; it is absolute
The precedence of God no one outranks
Man’s part is to obey and give Him thanks
This keeps the heart from becoming enslaved
To the futility of Things, the ‘old man’ craved
Truth teaches us to value what we ought
Lest in the quest for wealth, Truth is forgot
Only treasures in heaven will not rust
All else at death will turn to ash and dust
Naked we came and naked we will leave
Beware, lest snare of Satan doth deceive

The grave is the cadaver’s final splash
At death all Things will turn to dust and ash

© Janet Martin

 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, 
where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 
21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.…
Matt.6:19-21

On that note I am about to leave to buy some things,
Because some Things serve a sweet cause such as
 a gift for Grand-daughter's second birthday!
Last year store-lockdowns and Covid restrictions
 kept her first birthday a rather low-key
celebration. no gifts, no party!
This year hopefully we will celebrate with renewed awareness and thankfulness
 of the preciousness of words like 'together' and 'hello'
and 'have a piece of cake'!

Monday, June 15, 2020

This Sacred Life

Happy Half-way Through June
...a month always gone-too-soon!


...and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
 and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Eccles.12:7

This sacred life, each breath not like sands strewn upon the shores of time
But threads that weave the treads we celebrate and grieve as up we climb
Where all too soon the sun and moon and stars shall dim their lofty flame

This sacred life oft runs too rife with critics and ways to condemn
Rather than servants ministering like The Good Samaritan
Oh Lord, convict us lest we fall prey to the pomp and show of pride
Rather than bear hate’s stripes and scorn in honour of The Crucified

This sacred life is like a flicker on the wick of Evermore
A prelude filled with bickering and battles where faith and fear war
Before a stone-cold door swings shut on all but Death’s Great Mystery
As our last breath gives way to the on-ness of Immortality

This sacred life, how dare we raise a fist to fellowman or God
But cling with humble reckoning to He who cups sky, sea and sod
Where grace and discipline are rendered by a tender Rod and Staff
By He who did not spare His Son but gave Him up on our behalf

To be the Saviour of the Soul; ah, this instills that sacred chord
Where views will be distorted if not seen through the lens of God's Word
For He so loved the world He gave His only Son to pay the price
As sin’s ransom once and for all; we are saved through love’s sacrifice

This sacred life, bought with the blood of king of kings and Lord of lords
Is a gift to be treasured, not fought with the smite of word-shaped swords
Oh Lord, forgive we who forget and wield a tyrant’s hateful knife
To hurt rather than help a precious fellow-mate of sacred life

© Janet Martin

I wrote this yesterday morning after listening to this video...


... just before this message below from one of our ministers at WBC
explaining a parable I have often puzzled over!
Thank-you Richard!

both reminding us of the sacredness of this SHORT life
of numbered days


Thursday, January 3, 2019

Treasure Hunt-Wealth Guaranteed






When our way is littered with the wealth of ‘having had’
And the wind turns bitter where the sun glittered, warm-gold
Then we look around us for new reasons to be glad
Hunting for the treasure that only the heart can hold

Life is like a teacher and a preacher and a thief
We are always not too old to master something new
Nobody outgrows the reaches of gladness or grief
As we dig for treasure where time’s dust and trust runs through

Happiness is not a goal, but takes us by surprise
Right in the middle of a little kerfuffle with ‘no’
It gobsmacks us on the back or startles hungry sighs
With treasures we trampled on until steps had to slow

Nothing is for nothing if we first choose hope and love
Opportunity is often dressed in common guise
We are all prospectors standing on a teeming trove
Where we will find treasure if we open up our eyes

© Janet Martin





Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Teasure Hunt!

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matt 6:21



Of rich or poor or young or old
We procure treasure in our hold
While whiling blips of gray and gold
Unfold an awesome vault
Where what we hear and what we see
Of lust-love prone propensity
Reveals the heart of you and me
By whom our finds exalt

Therefore with solemn aptitude
And holy, humble gratitude
We ought to measure attitude
By treasure that we hoard
For as these darling days decree
These farthing ways of you and me
Are heaping up love’s entity
To lay before the Lord

© Janet Martin


This summer our speakers at WBC have been teaching a series entitled
Treasures from the Heart

Check out worth-your-while challenge-your-love-style messages here.