Those 'What-if' Bullies

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The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet and tender bliss

Unless we stray and tread the path

Of monster-shaped, ruthless ‘what-ifs’

The what-ifs’ lunge and jeer and leer

Leaping from unexpected dips

A bully-whisper in our ear

Quenching the laughter on our lips

Oh, we do well to guard our thought

Forbidding it to wander where

These demons wait to mutilate

Our hope with visions of despair

And in thought’s quiet solitude

When what-ifs threaten their torment

How sweet to know that God is good

We walk in moments He has sent

The what-ifs that will come to be

Must first pass through His hands above

To dwell in ‘what-if’ misery

Is thus to doubt His faithful love

The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet, tranquil retreat

If we surrender what is not

And place our ‘what-ifs’ at Love’s feet

© Janet Martin

 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isa. 41:10

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Deut. 31:6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. Prov. 3: 5-6

The In-betweens

Darling, when I am missing you

And there is nothing I can do

To push the minutes from the hour

Or rush the bud to spill its flow’r

Or pluck from far cloud-studded sea

The wonderment of what will be

Then darling, I embrace the sheen

Of moments in the in-between

Moments and hours disappear

How soon they shape another year

The echo of its memories

Soft ripples on thought’s phantom seas

I kiss your whisper in the air

Climbing time’s ephemeral stair

To what will be from what has been

Riveting these hours in between

And in this in between I know

That soon its transient scene, like snow

Will melt into the distant blue

So darling, when I’m missing you

I do not haste the brooding clock

Or chase life’s moments down the walk

But tenderly embrace the keen

And fleeting space of  'in between'

© Janet Martin

Mercy-flood

He reaches from His throne on high

To brush the night-time from the sky

The hand of love that never fails

Bearing the imprint of those nails

Does not ignore us in our plight

But fans the deep with Morning Light

His love beholds earth’s troubled slope

He rends the dark with Living Hope

For when we were dead in our sin

He raised us up to live with Him

Rejoice; the Son pierces the gloom

And saves us from death’s darkest doom

He lavishes on sinful men

His grace and washes sinners clean

For mortal flesh could never save

The soul from death’s eternal grave

But oh, the love His mercy gives

As man beholds the cross and lives

He reaches from His throne on high

To soothe the tear-drop in our eye

And like the sword pierced Him that day

As crimson floods washed guilt away

Now He pierces fear’s darkest night

Love bleeds across the earth in Light

© Janet Martin

Imagine if one day there was no Light, and one morning nothing to pierce the night…

Often, as the sun break through night’s dark bonds it reminds me of the Son breaking through our darkness flooding it with marvelous Light.

 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Eph. 2:4-9

I Write This Poem for...Us

I write this poem for you, my dear

For you are young and cannot hear

The rush of moments as they fly

Waning the gap twixt earth and sky

I write this poem for you, my love

To brush life’s gray with bits of mauve

Lest through it’s daily grind we pass

Like solemn shadows on the grass

I write this poem so we may see

Life’s Author and His poetry

Lest blindly we traverse this stage

And never pause to read the page

© Janet Martin 

Heaven's poetry spills from an infinite page...

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Ps.19:1

Heart-matters

 

Man looks upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

We cannot see the hidden part

For only God looks on the heart

We judge a man by what we see

Of pride or of humility

And we may fool with careful art

The eyes that cannot see the heart

But fools will trust a fool’s disguise

Forgetting that the true man lies

Not in appearance’s vain part

But in the measure of the heart

We look upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

But God sees far beyond the skin

For He beholds the heart within

© Janet Martin

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The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7

Ink-travel

 

Where will we travel today, my dear friend

Before dusk-blue shadows are cast?

Will we push toward life’s elusive ‘next-bend?’

Or return by your touch, to the past?

Will we, by the vexing persuasion of ink

Ponder the cold facts that exist?

Or will we succumb and slip over the brink

To arms of loved ones, dearly missed?

Will we probe the oracles shaping our want?

Or want nothing but what we hold?

Will we by the power of word-whispered jaunt

Revel where the moon blazes cold?

Darling, I love you for I cannot tell

Wherever or how we might go

And thought is an ocean that no hand can quell

Nor tether its free-falling flow

We are capable my love, of the worst

Just as we are of life’s best

Ah poet, ah pen, are we graciously cursed

Or dearly and divinely blessed?

A pen is a vehicle we all can afford

What blessing it then surely must be

That we traverse fathoms with nothing but word

Spilling into poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Home-makers, Mamas and Glory-days

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We do not tip the glamor Richter-scale

Of fashion, fortune or front-page applause

Yet we embrace, like heaven’s Holy Grail

Each humble task of love’s domestic cause

There are no halls of fame or monuments

To honor dish-soap hands of mama-smiles

No recognition for the hours spent

Of washed and folded, scrubbed and polished miles

We do not labor for crass platitude

Or trophies to acknowledge our pain

But oh, the childish grin of gratitude

Endears to us what some view as mundane

There are no banners waving in the air

For she who, for the thousandth time has served

Supper at six and no one really cares

Yet she toils not for recompense deserved

She toils to see her happy children smile

To nurture tenderly her patch of sod

Not for the wealth of fortune’s fleeting guile

But to make home a little glimpse of God

© Janet Martin

The inspiration for this poem; 

Both of my daughters work at Long-term care facilities. Yesterday while exchanging stories, they agreed it is so touching to see some of the ladies with dementia rocking and patting dolls or folding and re-folding tea-towels or aprons; re-living their glory-days…

We watched the movie The Help yesterday.Wow! That's all I will say.

On the week-end one of my daughters commented on how I seem so happy and content just doing laundry and stuff...ah, if she only knew:) and I pray someday she may, Lord-willing:) It's not the laundry, the dishes, the cleaning, the 'stuff'; it's the LOVE!

The other evening after supper had been over  for a while suddenly 'sonny' mentions while passing through the kitchen, 'oh, by the way mom, thanks for supper. It was really good'.'

I dedicate this song to all mamas and daddies.

Vexation-proof

Sometimes a vast, vexatious void

Torments the foibles of our thought

Not with life’s precious proofs of joy

But with the tears of what is not

The vaunt of what is not can drain

The laughter from life’s cup we hold

And what we have we hold in vain

If we ignore its splash of gold

For what is not may never be

And what fills our cup today

Does not come with a guarantee

That it will never slip away

So, when that vast, vexatious vaunt

Threatens to drive us to despair

We ought to fold its tortured taunt

Between our fingers in a prayer

© Janet Martin

Yesterday, was Family Day in Ontario. A provincial holiday for families to focus on spending time together. We had a great day, minus 'daddy' who needed to leave so he could be back for plans next week-end. I needed to keep re-filling my 'cup' with reminders of what we have, and not what is not...folding the rest between my fingers.

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