By Grace

My sins would bury me

As failure digs my grave

Doubt and guilt would jeer and sneer

And I would be a slave

To all the fortune it would boast

Discouragement, despair

Confounded to the uttermost

Crushed by its weight of care

But then, kind arms of mercy

Gather me in Love’s embrace

Banishing sin’s curses

I am a sinner

Saved

By grace

 

© Janet Martin

 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph. 2:8

A Cup of Tea with a Friend...

We may travel the wide world over

North, south, from end to end

But it cannot measure the pleasure

Of a cup of tea with a friend

Many are life’s vast achievements

And many kind hands it extends

But none can replace the contentment

Of a cup of tea with a friend

© Janet Martin

Intangible Satisfaction

You warm me,

Not with cloak or shawl

Nor with sweaters of wool

Or quilted blankets

In nostalgic hue

But,

With the beautiful

Intangible

And ever irreplaceable

Thought of you

You touch me

Not with gentle brush

Of fingertips

Nor with the

Pleasing whisper

Of your lips

But you

Touch me

Like flesh can never do

In the beautiful,

Bittersweet

Satisfying

Thought of you

© Janet~

October Lullaby

The weightless leaf grows heavy ‘neath the tears of autumn’s sky

Filling leaf-swollen levies; fall exhales a lullaby

Of heaven-tinted awning dropping soundless to a berth

Where the echo of the ages slumbers, layered in the earth

A metaphor of moments trickles from the weeping limb

Relinquishing the beauty of the bud and blossomed scrim

The hour adjusts its images to nature’s perfect rule

And mortal searches, scrimmages for shadows on its pool

There is no bugle blowing; no salute to Time’s demise

As sod and stream are flowing with the tears of fall good-byes

But quiet preparation glimmers in the silver air

In raw juxtaposition of keen triumph and despair

The weightless leaf grows heavy; soon the laughing tree is mute

As winds scatter its bevy of bygones without dispute

And we behold the Truth within its stark and unclad form

The summer of fair youth is but the prelude to life’s storm

© Janet Martin

The Hand of Time

Kindly in time she removes the shards

And the thorns that mar her being

She softens realities once plain or hard

Until the picture we’re seeing

Glimmers; a sweet, soulful reverie

In a beautiful memory

The ‘good old days’ even now are being made

As daylight slips into the quiet dark

And as the echo of our hurried footsteps fade

Sealing in history their ethereal mark

We sense her stoical empathy

Preserving a beautiful memory

Surely the epitome of kindness forms her bearing

She does not care to keep our polished woes

Beneath her touch their ache is disappearing

As we hold the filament of mercy close

Gently, her brushstrokes help us see

Nothing, but a beautiful memory

© Janet Martin

Every autumn I am so reluctant to trim off the plants
in my flower-garden...
There is beauty in the broken and in blooms that weather the storm.

    

Dancing in the Rain

Yiruma always makes me feel like writing:)...love songs

Let me love you

Darling, let’s stop keeping score

Starting over

Is not what I am asking for

But just another

Day-opportunity

To love you, darling

Like I thought that love would be

Let me love you

What if this day were our last?

Would its memory

Be the one that we hold fast?

It’s so easy

To forget what we live for

And all I’m asking

Is for one loving-you-day more

Let me love you

Only death makes it too late

To keep on trying

Let me love you, then today

This flesh-blood offering

Is all that I can give

But oh, my darling

Let me love you thus

Each day I live

…and let me love you

Like a slow-dance in the rain

I want nothing

But a day-chance to try again

Starting over

Is not what I’m asking for

But just to love you,

Oh my darling

Just to love you one day more

© Janet Martin

In the Winter-fire Glow

I would do it all again

This trial-and-error slipping of the feet

Is not in vain

Even the errors we repeat

Do not spell failure

If it simply means we tried again…

In spring wildly we cling

To summer’s luring dream

In summer, softly we begin

To hear autumn’s requiem

In autumn, oh tis then we know

How swift life’s years slip past

And in the winter-fire glow

We hold its memory fast

© Janet Martin

So We Pray...

So we pray

Not as some frantic ‘last-resort’ request

But, with hope

We trust and obey

Leaving our care with He who knows best

© Janet Martin

Pray without ceasing. 1 Thess. 5:17