God Cares

Problems can be roads to spiritual growth that good times will never provide.
We stand the tallest and the strongest
on our knees
before
God.

(Dr. Charles Stanley)

God cares and pleads for us to cast upon Him all our care

No pious platitudes, His Word; nothing He cannot bear

God cares: daily He succors us. Praise be to Holy God

No other god can sanctify the sinner through his blood

God cares; the earth and all therein belongs to Him thus we

Can trust The Great Caretaker for those things we cannot see

God cares; He does not overlook our unbelief and pride

But once for all He sent His Son; on our behalf He died

How could it be a God who sends His Son for us forgets?

God cares; His promises abide where pain and grief besets

He does not leave us comfortless; He hears our humble prayers

And answers in His timing: how He loves us, how God cares

© Janet Martin

 Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Ps. 55:22

 
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Ps 68:19

"I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? Jer. 32:27 

One of my favorite songs...

God Will

God will walk with me
down streets where no one else will walk
God will talk with me
of things that no one else will talk

When no one else will walk
and no one else will talk
when no one will
God will

God will share with me
the little worries no one knows are there
God will care for me
whenever there is no one else to care

When no one will be there
and no one else will share
when no one will
God will

God will think of me
when friends forget and fail to understand
God will strengthen me
when I am weak and need a helping hand

When no one understands
or lends a helping hand
When no one will
God will
when no one will
God will

Weight-lifting

What is this weight; out by the gate the goldenrod turns yellow

A young man stands where Time’s swift hands have stolen ‘mom's wee fellow’

Those days we dreamed about have come and gone; its veiled tomorrows

Like buds, have borne the rose and thorn of livings joys and sorrows

What is this weight; is it the frigate of an hour pressing?

Morning unmoors from phantom shores a fleet of untried blessing

And soon our feet will taste its street where want and wisdom clashes

How fair the dust of wanderlust; how stringent Duty’s sashes

What is this weight; God fills our plate from mercy's boundless table

He knows our woes and weaknesses and how much we are able

To bear; the air is heavy where we've yearned and prayed and pondered 

Yet cannot persuade nature's law to refund mercies squandered

What is this weight; each circled date that once consumed our passion

Has slipped into The Yonder Blue in time’s tried and true fashion

Its aftermath a muted path of loss-and-laughter molding

What is this weight; methinks it is the Love of God unfolding

© Janet Martin

... What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31

The Process of Poetry

We agonize and analyze and criticize; we wait

We cross it out and toss about the albatross of doubt

We mitigate and litigate, debate and contemplate

And cleave to the belief that we will hear the silence shout

We fill the quill with want and will until it fain must spill

We dare the air to sit and stare at us without a word

We pant, 'I can’t' yet know we shan’t give up, for oh, the thrill

To shift and sift where letters drift until a poem is stirred

We urge where surge of echoes splurge; to rein their essence in

We pray, oh may the Giver of all things guide our thought

We fumble, stumble, tumble through a world somewhere within

And then we write as thought takes flight; this is a poet’s lot

© Janet Martin

Some Summer Haiku

The Living Dead

The living dead trample the morning without noticing its gift

They finger flowers; pluck them like a nose-gay set adrift

The living dead, with unbowed head glorify gods of greed

With emptiness they fill but cannot satisfy their need

The living dead have never wept with wonder at God’s grace

For such a debt as sin, a perfect Jesus took our place

They inhale-exhale hunger while they seek but cannot find

What they are looking for amongst the blind leading the blind

The living dead stuff mouths with bread yet never pray or pause

To kneel upon the sod God fills with sustenance for us

The living dead walk, run, like, laugh yet never really live

Slave to the grave; ever they crave what God alone can give

© Janet Martin

Ann used the phrase ' It’s time to be tired of being the living dead.'

Am I truly alive? are you?

Ephesians 2: 1-10...

By Grace Through Faith (KJV)

¹ And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

² Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

³ Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

⁵ Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

⁶ And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

⁷ That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.

¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

Summer's Signature

Sweet Summer scrawls its signature into Time’s tired dust

With wordless wonder; it is ageless God who holds the quill

As we marvel anew at bronze and emerald; wanderlust

Inspires us to seek the solace of a bloom-bathed hill

…or tea-time in the garden whilst we bask in memories

Midst cricket-canticle and dreams that never did come true

We lift our eyes to touch the sighs of walnut-canopies

Its roof is full of holes where bits of blue and gold spill through

The wasteland of our worry cannot compete with God’s grace

He spreads across earth’s sod a patch-work quilt of hope and need

Then, did our wanting suddenly ignite a song of praise

To know our days are numbered by the Hand that fills the seed?

Sweet summer scrawls its signature in zinnia, larkspur, rose

Its penmanship too delicate for man to imitate

As we ponder the poetry of nature-perfect prose

 We know that we believe the proof that agnostics debate

© Janet Martin

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. Rom.11:36

My, My

My, my, we sigh ‘how time does fly’

How seamlessly the years slip by

Why did we grow oh, so, so slow

When we were kids; before we slid

Onto that grid of getting old

And how did we get here so fast?

Of short-sighted future and far-sighted past

My, my, we say, ‘how soon another day

Is done away; the gold and gray

Meet in the melting pot of yesterday

And all that we can keep of it

Are memories of what we did

I hope, as we sense Time’s sweet lenience fade

We say my, my but *what a lot of love we made

© Janet Martin

*lest there be any confusion, the writer is speaking of Love.