Thursday Thoughts~

To take responsibility

For health of our whole

Begins, not with the bodily

But with our soul

***

What is the language of love, my God?

What gives my words credence?

Soft comes His answer to my thought

‘But this; obedience’

***

Ah, vale of wasted sorrow

What treasure tossed away

If I don’t act tomorrow

On what I learn today

***

Face to the future

Back to the past

Hand to the moment

Soon its mold is cast

***

Dusk draws its shadow

Over the day

Over the meadow

In whispers blue-gray

You draw your murmuring

Where thought is bold

Blue-gray, my darling

With flickers of gold

***

Do not begrudge life’s trouble

This is the curse of sod

And Time is but the bubble

That carries us to God

***

Your flesh is pleasant to my touch

And oh, parting is pain

But thought will hold you close, my love

Until we meet again

***

Lord, show me how to walk today

Slow down these steps that hasten

And teach me, Lord what not to say

When I should simply listen

© Janet Martin

Of Arists and Wanderers and Warriors

Artists and wanderers and warriors we go

Drawn to the turf of impending unknowns

Winding our way through life’s flowers and thorns

Reaching for Something within its mute flow

Faith is the substance of things we hope for

Hallowed evidence of the unseen

We cannot tarry in what once had been

From the horizon new mercies implore

…and onto the stepping-stone of gracious sod

Forward and upward and onward we climb

Artists and wanderers and warriors of Time

Reaching for something; ah, reaching for God

© Janet Martin

Of Days That Were...

We were looking at old photo albums. I've said it before; my kid's birthdays make me a little sentimental. Melissa turns 19 today! She laughed when she saw these photos and recalled how she was somersaulting all over the back yard.

The days that were will never be

Ever they rest in still repose

Where eye of thought alone can see

The garden of its trampled rose

The night-wind bears the beckoning

Of days gone by; we reminisce

How is it that Time’s reckoning

Employs love’s bitter-sweetest kiss?

The vibrato of cricket-song

Is but the back-drop on a stage

Where quietly we stroll among

The markers of a by-gone age

The days that were will never be

And though we touch its ether strand

To dwell within their memory

Is but to miss the day at hand

© Janet Martin

Of Seasons and Doorways

Season-kaleidoscopes turn transient tides

Where we compose retrospect’s raw refrain

Rubric of laughter abruptly collides

With the appointments of sorrow and pain

Living and loving and learning we go

Over Time’s foot-hills, mountains, vales and plains

Sunshine and shadow in multi-shades flow

As seasons spiral One Constant remains

Mercy and grace in unfathomed purport

Gently embrace and succor and support

We bear witness with baffled acumen

Life’s whys and wherefores our intellect mutes

Gently the summertime is gathered again

Hallowed harvest as choice yields its fruits

We cannot pause or dissuade Death’s advent

Futile the babble of faithless disputes

Soft breath by half-breath our dust-mottled tent

Suffers the training of heaven’s recruits

As we gaze up to faith’s covenant-goal

Our flesh the brief cup of Immortal Soul

Can we efface winter, spring, summer, fall?

Who can refute Time’s encompassing will?

Then, who can hide when the Father will call?

Who dares refuse what Love came to fulfill?

Earth wears the colors of each season-shawl

We tread its heaven-cradled countenance

This is the stairway to Love’s All-in-all

And time, but the road to deliverance

Where now seasons veil what we cannot see

A doorway leading to eternity

Janet~

Ending and cutting many beans is an opportunity to think:)

What Are We Living For?

  

Image Source

A baby cries; somebody dies

Somewhere a son goes off to war

Time ebbs and flows in highs and lows

Tell me, what are we living for?

Snow angels, roses, butterflies

Sickness and sorrow, anguish, pain

A son for which a mother cries

Because he won’t come home again

Laughter and song fade in mid-air

Love, loss and longing mingle wild

We see a young girl with no hair

And innocence torn from a child

The brush falls from a painter’s hand

Oh Lord, our God, we weep and call

By faith we press against the wind

Toward the One who sees it all

As babies die and loved ones cry

The clay turns in the Potter's love

Shaping us to the Reason why

As we press to His arms above

© Janet Martin

 So much pain and sorrow in this world; all would be hopeless without Jesus.

 John 16:33 - These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Of History and Footprints~

 By dusk the day's traces were washed from the beach...

They come and then they go

Like footprints in the sand or snow

But still they guide us faithfully

By what we learn through history

To stop our eyes and ears

Against life’s past or future fears

Is to repeat oft, hopelessly

Those lessons taught in history

Soon Time will wash away

The visible steps of today

Yet, we are wise to pause and see

Their lessons sealed in history

© Janet Martin

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

Just read Heb. 11. Feeling discouraged? What great testimonies of faith and endurance we are reminded of in this chapter!

 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Heb. 12:1

Blessed Assurance 
 words by Fanny J. Crosby

Life

The days of wheat and corn adorn

The haze of early August morn

In praises, ere its sheaf is shorn

By Time’s swift, willing hands

The farmer gleans its harvest-gold

And summer leans to autumn’s hold

While moment-skeins unfold, unfold

A subtle, steady strand

The sun and moon their courses tread

The azure noon succumbs to red

As gentle vesper-tunes embed

This day into the past

The flower grins then falls away

The sinner sins but then we pray

And grace begins another day

Toward our ever-last

The scroll on which our past is writ

A toll of living’s wit and grit

Cannot contain the whole of it

A greater Day a-waits

Man’s life is like a field of grass

This strife is but the darkened glass

Through which the scythe of grief must pass

Leading to Heaven’s gates

© Janet Martin

Of Waves and Second Chances

No spent waves tune morning’s gladness

From the Hand of all things new

Comes a morning drenched with mercy

Sweet with kiss of heaven’s dew

Hope expands beneath the tresses

Where, since Eden’s paradise

Light, with ever-faithful graces

Rends the dark with morning skies

Here we laugh and weep and wonder

Dare to dream the dreaming dream

While the bloom falls from the poppy

Scarlet whispers on life’s stream

Still, we press toward a portal

Past the lintel of the sky

Where mortal becomes immortal

In the twinkling of an eye

We are not adrift on oceans

Of spent waves and happenstance

Morning rends the dark with dawning

And the gift of second chance

© Janet Martin

The other day I read a quote that has stayed stuck in my mind…It is not too late to become who you dreamed you would be.

Press on, my friends. God’s grace is new every morning.

Also, please let us pray for those suffering in Egypt. Prayer changes things!

  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,  not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph. 2: 4-10