Of Glimmers and God's Love

Can ever a song be written?

Or ever a poem penned?

Can ever our vision capture

The fullness of love without end?

Even the ocean-cradle

Or star-spangled galaxy

Are infinitesimal glimmers

Of God’s love for you and me

Can ever thought imagine

Or begin to comprehend

The height, depth and circumference

Of God’s love without end?

Since that cry “it is finished”

Lost, sin-cursed human race

Can freely claim the pardon

Of His forgiving grace

Can ever we understand it?

How I AM left His throne

Putting on flesh God became Lamb

Our sin-debt to atone

Can ever we cease to tell it?

No never, no never enough!

The wonderful, incomprehensible

Eternal Savior’s love

© Janet Martin

Another Day...

The glory of new morning swells

In burnished gold to field and dell

Where clenched fist of night’s darkest clutch

Softens, uncurls beneath dawn’s touch

As mercy of the Lord bestows

Another day of want and woes

The Light is greater than the dark

Its power cradled in a spark

And now the shadow melts beneath

The gilded tide of heaven’s wreath

As somber shades of night recoil

To lend another day of toil

Already virgin moments run

Their minute course beneath the sun

While we, proprietors of them

Employ the surge of gifted gem

As God grants from His kind embrace

Another day of hope and grace

© Janet Martin

Those Other Mothers...

 

  

 
Image Source; google images of refugees from Syria

We tuck our babes to bed

And pray the Lord to keep

Those others mothers bowing heads

Afraid to go to sleep

We wave and blow a kiss

As the school buses come

Those other mothers have nowhere

To call their home sweet home

We plan our evening meal

With perhaps a nice treat

Those others mothers hope somehow

They have enough to eat

A mother loves her child

Full and completely

All around the whole wide world

Wherever we may be

We tuck our babes to bed

And pray the Lord to keep

Those other mothers as they lie

On dirt and try to sleep

© Janet Martin

Oh Mom, said Victoria, as she saw my tears and I stopped in the middle of praying for those who have no bed to climb into and go to sleep...and I told her that I'm thinking about every mother who loves their little girl or boy as much as I love her and they have nowhere to call home.

Oh, Hand of Time

Before this twilight slips aloft

I beg of thee, oh, touch me soft

The harder knocks of life must be

To teach me true humility

As myriad of moments test

And prove the God I love the best

Oh, hand of Time, the law you teach

Oft keeps Wants’ laurels out of reach

And so before you test again

Oh, touch me softly now and then

Where I can learn love’s meeker truth

Reserved for those who slip from youth

For though I know that I must bear

Like others do life’s weary share

Of burdens only love can know

Oh, hand from whence Time’s moments flow

Before this twilight slips aloft

I beg of thee, oh, touch me soft

© Janet Martin

 Because it was going to be dark if I did dishes first, I went out first. Now I must do dishes.

Precious Love of God

 

To prince, pauper, preacher alike

Or any on earth’s sod

Not one has tasted more or less

Of precious love of God

Within each mortal shell of want

There is a void until

We know that precious love of God

That none else can fulfill

© Janet Martin

My thoughts and prayers are with those suffering in and around Syria.

 Acts 12;5, So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

May we pray earnestly for those displaced, persecuted, suffering!

He rules the world in righteousness
    and judges the peoples with equity.
 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
    a stronghold in times of trouble.
 Those who know your name trust in you,
    for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. Ps. 9:8-10

Of Gathered Bittersweet

They slip from our embrace

And we can never see

That final, phantom resting place

Of never-more-will-be

Falling like formless leaves

To scatter at our feet

We run thought’s whisper over sheaves

Of gathered bitter-sweet

Yet still Time’s seasons course

In reckoning and chance

The heart cannot dissuade its force

Compelling us to dance

Hope does not sleep in tombs

But spills in gifted thread

Finger and thought cannot exhume

Spent glory or regret

 The filigree of past

 And imminence compete

Falling through touch to rest at last

In gathered bitter-sweet

© Janet Martin

We reach, touch, but can never keep the essence of a moment~

The Hope of Jesus

  

Image Source

The hope of Jesus soothes my soul

Sweet comfort in life’s trial and tear

The cross from which His pardon rolls

Soothes me when I would faint in fear

The hope of Jesus fills my heart

Life’s weight of care would crush my joy

Save for the peace His grace imparts

Where evil threatens to destroy

The hope of Jesus draws me on

For this is but a transient flight

To Heaven’s fair and final dawn

When at sweet last faith becomes sight

Hope; oh, precious gift of God

Beacon of promise in life’s pain

Until we leave this troubled sod

To where we never hope again

© Janet Martin

1 Corinthians 15:19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/bible-verses-about-hope-20-uplifting-scripture-quotes/#ixzz2esqBNfQK

Beneath Time's Gracious Sky

  

The other evening this line of cloud stretched as far as the eye could see...

Beneath Time’s wide and wondrous sky

Earth’s people live and love and die

Oh, little season on the sod

You are a steppingstone to God

And no one here can clearly see

Where that last steppingstone will be

Beneath Time’s sky of night and day

How swift a lifetime falls away

As everything our fingers clasp

Must be relinquished to the past

Our prayers and footprints stir the dust

In moment-monuments of trust

Beneath Time’s marked and measured roll

Before the rift twixt flesh and soul

We cannot choose what life will send

But we can choose where it will end

Beneath Time’s wide and wondrous sky

We choose the Gate to by-and-by

© Janet Martin

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Josh. 24:15