More...

Today I will not be content

Today I want more, more, more

More awareness of His love for me

That too often I blindly ignore

Today I will not be satisfied

Today I desire to know

More, more fully His plan for me

And where He would choose me to go

Today I want more, more hunger

For things not of flesh, but of Him

More gentle loving kindness

Before this day-moment grows dim

Today I refuse to be content

But I will not lust after things

I want more of what earth can’t afford

But knowing Him more fully brings

Today Lord, give me holy hunger

Oh my God, I beg and implore

For more compassion for my fellow-man

Oh God, give me more, more, more

© Janet Martin

A Carpe Diem

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt a Carpe Diem poem

Carpe Diem is the Latin expression that means ‘seize the day.’ Carpe Diem poems have a theme of living for today. It is a form in intent only; it is solely based on a theme.

Yesterday is sealed in the archives

Tomorrow is nothing more

Than the hope of something we cannot see

Today is worth living for

Today is the cup we are holding

Touch it to your lips; draw it in

Be imbibed with His goodness and mercy

Dripping recklessly from your grin

Seize the moment before you

Wring out every wonder of it

Let not one measure be wasted

Today is a beautiful gift

© Janet Martin

October's Song

She pleads in mirth and mutiny

A plaintive sigh, a bully-breeze

A skirmish on the grassy lea

An ocean rushing through the trees

She ripples in tranquility

Then grumbles, mumbles, hungry; cold

Tugging the laughter from the tree

In tears of scarlet, red and gold

She wanders fall’s bare-fallow girth

In search of summer’s melody

A desperate combing of the earth

A sweet, moody melancholy

She lounges in the bleeding dell

Then suddenly she lilts and leaps

No rhyme or sequence to her swell

She rises, falls; her maestro sleeps

Her sassy canto soon shall dim

The tremor of her farewell note

Will echo on the naked limb

And in the ache lodged in our throat

 Janet Martin

I’m going out to let her song tease and torment me for a little while…

Love's Sweet Sorrow

In the moments of holding and

Letting you go

In the bittersweet beauty

Of watching you grow

I am becoming

More aware, somehow

And understanding slowly

My own mother now

In the moments twixt yesterday

And tomorrow

I sense the shaping

Of sweet, sweet sorrow

How does one explain

The ‘I love you so',

As you plead for 'yes’

While my answer is 'no’?

 In the moments of holding and

Letting you go

In the tender-sweet beauty

Of watching you grow

I have become

More aware, somehow

Understanding the sweet sorrow

Of my own mother now

© Janet Martin

Sometimes when trying to explain the logic behind my words to the kids I find myself echoing the words of my parents, such as recently, ‘it’s not the ‘thing’ I dislike so much as what it will lead to’…

Power of Prayer

Helplessness is our greatest source of strength

***

The more self-sufficient we feel

The more equipped we are

For disaster

***

The Sum of Prayerlessness

Prayerlessness

=Burden-bearing

=Weariness

=Discouragement

=Disillusionment

=Drop-out or disobedience

=Disaster

***

If you want to be a strong leader, lead from your knees, not your feet.

***

These are some thoughts that really impacted me as I listened to In Touch  with Charles Stanley this morning.

Moment-drops

They roll in seamless waves

Across time’s formless shore

To seal in mystic graves

The echo of their roar

Hope, fear, anguish and awe

In passion-pulses weep

From future to our fingertips

To past’s unfathomed deep

Within the dead of night

They do not still their rush

And on the hinge of morning light

They shape its virgin blush

Against this obscure scope

We place desire’s fruit

Our sorrow and our hope

Both wickedness and good

Like flakes of melting snow

Its soundless storms descend

Perpetual moment-flow

Without beginning or end

We live and laugh and love

As to our lips they’re flung

Vertigo from vaults above

To glance upon our tongue

Simultaneous stream

Of future, present, past

In moment-morsels gleam

As history seals them fast

© Janet Martin

Where Do the Flowers Go?

They do not really die

They merely fall asleep

Beneath blue-blanket sky

And soil of umber keep

Gather your sorrows near

We cannot still the wheel

Of time as it doles out the year

In moment-pulsed quadrille

To everything on earth

There is a portioned hour

A season of new birth

From bud to lovely flower

A season to let go

Relinquishing to sod

The petals of life’s ebb and flow

For we belong to God

© Janet Martin

A Time for Everything...Eccl. 3: 1-12

 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,      

a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,     

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,      

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,      

a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,     

 a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,      

a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

 What do workers gain from their toil?   

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the human heart; 

yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

Images of Praise

How can our praise remain

A brief, un-uttered thought?

As images of passion brim

In shades that Heaven wrought

We pass this way but once

A sun and shadow flight

Where images of love entrance

Our vision with His might

The earth, beneath His care

Spills seasons on the land

As stunning images declare

The wonders of His hand

How can our song be still

In brief, anemic gaze

As sky and sea, as field and hill

Burst forth in nature’s praise?

Dare we to remain dumb

While stones and mountains swell

With images of wordless song

Mere men can never quell?

Oh, may our hearts and lips

Pour forth in word and deed

Pure images of thankfulness

As He sustains our need…

…and may our songs of praise

Never dare to be still

As images of hope and grace

Adorn earth’s mortal rill

© Janet Martin

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:40

Holy, Holy, Holy