Keeping the Faith #2...to Mothers

We live by faith for things we cannot see

God, help us then to do the best we can

How soon this little child upon our knee

Will grow to be a woman or a man

The laud-less toil of moments we employ

Will never fill the walls and halls of fame

But for a precious little girl or boy

We wear and bear a very special name

Mother

We live by faith; the faith of patient love

In offerings that may seem rather trite

Stirred, folded, wiped, polished, shook out and scrubbed

Then repeated from morning until night

Just to feel soft arms embrace our necks

Or hear their laughter lilting and carefree

Because they know who watches out for them

And loves them fully and most tenderly

Mother

We live by faith; for sight is kind and cruel

Love’s imperfections drive us to our knees

And motherhood can be a startling school

Of heart and hand and mind perplexities

But, just as God is faithful to our need

We kiss and scold and hold them when they fall

Trusting God for the increase in a seed

We listen just to hear their voices call

Mother

We live by faith; despair would claim our smile

If sight alone would be our little hope

For motherhood can be a thankless mile

Without the faith in One who helps us cope

Gladly we suffer love’s tender-sweet pain

Its recompense intangible, yet true

We laugh and weep and pray again, again

Just to hear them say, I love you too,

Mother

© Janet Martin

Keeping the Faith

 

How do I lay aside

This weight of living’s care

So I may run unhindered

This race from here to There?

How do I overcome

Life’s hindrances of grief

Lest I become entangled

In webs of unbelief?

How do I keep my faith

Fixed on hope’s faultless Prize

And not become distracted

By fear and follies lies?

Lord, help me cast aside

Temptation’s vile despair

Your Word is Holy Armor

Your fellowship is prayer

© Janet Martin

 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, Heb. 12:1

Beautiful You...to 'Girls' of all Ages

You are beautiful

And you are enough

Though media flaunts

Material stuff

God made you precious

His own through and through

And you are the only

Beautiful you

How quickly we finger

Our failures and flaws

But we ought to smile

And be thankful because

Beauty is not

Our shape or our skin

Beauty is something

That flows from within

Love is a beauty

That none can pretend

So let’s love each other

Girl, woman, friend

For then the mirror

We may glance into

Will reflect the image

Of a beautiful you

© Janet Martin

Morning Praise-song

The sky is full of broken dark

The morning teems with lay of lark

The bark-clad shaft of winter’s cold

Is waving banners of green-gold

Before the daylight’s deeper hues

Of dusk’s returning for its dues

Since Eden’s grief the sweat of man

Must fill the sheaf of mortal span

The night for rest, the day for toil

None are exempt from Eden’s spoil

And yet upon this broken place

None are exempt from mercy’s grace

The Light is greater than the dark

Come; join the lay of lilting lark

For the Creator is not gone

He fills the Darkness with the Dawn

His Hope immortal fills our days

Come; wave the banner of His praise

© Janet Martin

A Mother's Touch

Once she warmed thick, thirsty towels

In the microwave

Just to hear the delighted gratitude

Of bubble-bathed toddler-grins

Now she runs her hands over taffeta,

Chiffon and linen

Wedding plans

Once she lingered long

Cradling new-born feet in her hands

Wondering

Where life would take them

Now she trips over shoes

Left on the mat inside the door

During their pit-stops

Once she faced forward

Touching with trepidation

Words like teenager and driver’s license

Now she looks back

Wondering at the haste

Of founded fears

And moment-spun years

Once she held their soft, untrained hands

Overcome with awe

At the potential in them

Beneath patient instruction and teaching

Now she looks down at her own

Realizing that in the reaching and releasing

They were teaching her

© Janet Martin

Thought-gold

Though you are far away from me tonight

Thought is not bound by miles of land or sea

And you are not so far away from me

I reach to touch you in the words I write

The henchman of an hour never sleeps

But snuffs each moment as it slips to naught

He is not able to embezzle thought

Nor can he reach to steal the charge it keeps

For thought shapes the persuasions of the heart

The heart can hold a myriad of hours

And though it seems that we are far apart

I touch you like the sun kisses the flowers

Love cradles in its thought the finer art

Of hope and prayer and all that this empowers

The pilferage of moments fills the clutch

Of days, then weeks to years to centuries

The proof of their passage is memories

And only thought this corridor can touch

Tonight you press against the dark incline

Of midnight’s keen yet muted eloquence

And I embrace thought’s tender recompense

Of moments that have fallen from the vine

Then you are not so far away from me

And Time, though measured in numeric stance

Is powerless to bind a memory

Or chain its feet, forbidding us to dance

The law of love and loss and poetry

Unites us in its everlasting trance

We shoulder cares; perhaps the spoil of toil

The heart though it may break, seals the caress

Of joy and sorrow’s valiant tenderness

While tear’s are but the off-spring of its moil

Tonight, though miles declare expanses vast

Twixt you and I; we know the truth of thought

It travels beyond measured chart or jot

We are not far apart; thought binds us fast

The entities that fill our fumbling hold

Fall uselessly beneath the gilded clime

Where hearts embrace and lovingly enfold

The fragments of a moment’s lilt and rhyme

In treasure-troves of precious thought-forged gold

Its coffers gleam with offerings of Time

© Janet Martin

Hunter or Hunted?

Image source

The hunter must a-hunting go

Say, what will be his prey?

He cannot snare with shaft and bow

A sunny summer day

So what will be his prey?

The hunter must a-hunting go

Pity the sluggard then

Who has no thirst to chase the glow

Of dreams common to men

Pity the sluggard then

The hunter must a-hunting go

Will we be hunter or his yield?

We cannot be a ‘nothing’ so

Pick up your weapon or your shield

For I hear footsteps in the field

© Janet Martin

Awesome Wonder...

(tonight was one of those 'awesome wonder' nights')

I have stood upon a shore

Where century-shaped breakers roar

And I have seen the winter yield

To summer’s sanguine clover field

I have held and I’ve let go

I’ve seen the melding ebb and flow

Of joy and sorrow intertwined

Beyond our mastery designed

I’ve seen the brawny bud unfold

To bleed its bloom in autumn gold

I’ve watched a child traverse the span

To see a boy become a man

I’ve stood beneath the twilight’s dirge

To watch the skyline Artist splurge

I’ve asked Him, “My God, what is man?

That You are mindful yet of him

I have lived to dream and dance

To taste the grace of second chance

And know for all not understood

The truth remains that God is good

© Janet Martin