Thursday Thoughts on Love

With love

Not much else is needed

Without love

Everything isn’t enough

***

With love the smallest task is noble

Each humble home fit for a king

Without love the grandest castle

Is a sham of cold nothing

***

With love

We do not tally

Its effort or its cost

With love

We simply give and give

Leaving the rest to God

***

When all else fails

Trust love

***

When I think of God’s love for me

And what He gave on Calvary

My heart is touched with tender peace

Misgivings fade in sweet release

***

When I think of God’s love for me

And how He died to set me free

It seems foolish to think somehow

That He would overlook us now

***

With love we count our blessings

Without love we count our loss

True love begins with forgiveness of sins

As we behold the cross

***

If we love we have known God

***

Sometimes the weight of this old world

Would get the best of me

But when I hug my little girl

Love wins and sets me free

***

Sometimes life’s disappointments

Seems to come in ten-fold

But it is not so hard to bear

With love’s warm hand to hold

***

It is hard to simply trust

As faith is put to test

But if God so fully loved us

Then He knows what is best

For He did not, without a thought

Give His dear Son to die

But saw past Jesus' Suffering

Even to you and I

So when temptation bids us doubt

Or causes us to grieve

Remember what His promise is

To all who will believe

Janet~  

On Comfort and True Fasting

 

“Come” says the high and lofty One

Who lives forever, holy King

Yet also dwells, not with the proud

But with the contrite suffering

“Come, I will guide and comfort you

From mourning lips I will draw praise

Peace, peace”, He whispers, “I will heal

Your sinful greed and evil ways”

“There is no peace” Holy God says

“For wicked hearts consumed with lust

They cast up mire from the waves

And revel in earth’s stricken dust

Is this the fast that I enforce?

One day for mankind to submit

And lie in ashes of remorse

Then return to his vile vomit?

Is not this the purer fast I chose?

To set the bound and oppressed free

To clothe the poor and share with those

Who hunger in their poverty?”

“Come” says the high and lofty one

Then I will satisfy your needs

As your night shines like noon-day’s sun

Hope’s garden watered with love’s deeds

© Janet Martin

Hope

How dark and vast would be the rift

Twixt Holy God and man

But for His saving grace: Love’s gift

Sin’s void of doom to span

How immeasurable, our debt

How utter death’s last loss

But for the oath in His last breath

And victory through the cross

How base would be this toil and strife

Where evil’s ploys deceive

But for the everlasting life

To all who will believe

© Janet Martin

Amazing Grace

Are there any words really, to capture the wonder of His love?

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son

that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

Moment-mien

The mien that smoothly, softly crept

Across our childhood while we slept

Is the same tenure that still binds

Life’s timbre deep within our minds

And sometimes when the night is still

Or when dawn spreads across the hill

I sense a tug intense, obscure

I cannot bear yet must endure

With a brave smile upon my face

As I gaze on the resting place

Of moments as they gently swirl

The gossamer of laughing girl

And where she danced on springtime’s green

A woman stands where she had been

Janet~

I have not heard this song in years but this morning it popped in my head as I awoke!

Neither Beggar Nor Thief

 

 Image Source:

Oh, it would be unfair to tear

Frail fabric gently mended

But here, tonight upon the air

The music has not ended

And though Time delves into its depths

And flings upon the tresses

Another year of life and death

Of farewell song-caresses

They linger where the heart must bear

Life’s raw un-chosen sorrow

We bravely touch the suture where

Time cannot steal nor borrow

J~

Hints of Spring

Fresh chives have sprouted and the lilac stem

Is jeweled with chartreuse and cinnabar gem

The sap from the maple tree trickles and sings  

The snowline recedes as the sun softly grins

The crocus is nudging, edging through the soil

With warm breeze suggesting a sweet garden-toil

The pasture of winter and frozen respite

Sheds its dazzling garment of glistening white

The farmer is whistling and watching each slope

Refurbished with passion of earth-scented hope

For this is the pleasure that overrides pain

Earth’s hard-earned treasure in gold-rippling grain

Plush pussy-willow, soft rose full-moon dusk

The air teased with whispers of sun-beam and musk

Sassy robin canticle drifts on the air

Spring hints its arrival but is detained somewhere…

© Janet Martin

March Garden

 (March garden today)

As I look at you now

With eyes half-closed

Every plant is a prize-winning rose

No sickly stems

Or dormant seeds

No gaps, no drought, no sassy weeds

Each row is extra-robust
Lush and bright

I revel in its florid hush tonight

For nothing blooms quite as perfectly

In late March, it seems

As the garden that grows in straight rows in my dreams

© Janet Martin

Celebration Poems

From Poetic Bloomings; Over the course of time, we have stretched the muses and minds of our extremely talented family of poets, with our prompts and forms, interviews and projects. So for this venture, Marie and I ask you to write a “Celebration” poem.   Celebrate your life, an anniversary, a birthday, an event… but do it in the form of a 10 X 10 poem (Ten lines times Ten words per line = 100 words – a century). Thus, we want you to write a Celebration in a Century (Celebration of the Century).

My Life-wish Celebration

I want to live so that when my Hour comes

I will not lie on a deathbed of sad regret

But peacefully then I will relinquish my final, farewell breath

Content to know that in life’s brief, mystic moment flow

I fully danced and freely dreamed and laughed and wept

Daring to fly with faith buoying me above fear’s crypt

So that when the last everlasting sleep steals over me

And sets me free from demons of doubt and want

I will surrender, reaching to Him with weary, ready arms

Satisfied to let go, surrendering softly to heaven’s eternal embrace

© Janet Martin

Celebrating US

We are a band driven by a common, luring thirst

Battling through highs and lows of feeling blessed and cursed

As we suffer blissfully the divine endowment of word vexation

Knowing at any moment we may be perplexed by temptation

In the curves of consonants joined perfectly with certain vowels

Dangling and taunting they whisper, falling from thought’s dripping jowls

As we stir soup or wander among children, women, men

Suddenly, the searing surge to grasp the frond of pen

Consumes our bearing and we cannot substitute or coldly mediate

With anything but written word; we are poets; we celebrate

© Janet Martin