A Most Wonderful Gift

 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Ps. 143:8

You steal our breath

The way you sweep

The dark to naught

From vale and steep

You trace with hands

We cannot see

Hope’s unmarred

Opportunity

And soft upon

Time’s season-stage

You offer dawn

From age to age

…and all that we

Are called to do

Is humbly give

It back to You

© Janet Martin

Toward the Full of It

We persist

And rearrange

And change our minds

Because

We didn’t know

Those years ago

How long and strong

Love was

So, for love’s sake

Of give and take

We break beneath

Its kiss

As, still we learn

The strange return

Of how patient

Love is

Heave-ho, ahoy,

To find love’s joy

We dare not

Dare to quit

But ever press

With tenderness

Toward the full

Of it

© Janet Martin

Something Worth Striving For...

My wee, little spot

On earth’s blue-bitty dot

Was never designed

For anyone else

Therefore, by God’s grace

In each day I face

I want to be

My very best self

© Janet Martin

With Holy Awe

...for the mortal it feels impossible to understand the close distance of eternity. Kara Tippetts~

Then teach us, Lord
To love and live
Each day You give
By mercy's law
And help us to
Humbly embrace
Each day of grace
With holy awe

Janet~

Then, At the Very Thought Of It

From this...

to this...

 I needed to dig out some 'green-gold bliss'. we are in a long deep, cold spell...

Beneath a sleek and silver sweep

The songs of summer soundly sleep

Tuning the tempest-stricken deep

With hope of spring and things to come

Then, at the very thought of it

The frigid noon-day thaws a bit

And draws the mind to pause and sit

Warmed by a sigh where zephyrs strum

And where mute tree-limbs creak and groan

With winter’s brute- bleak monotone

A gentler melody enthrones

The place that waits for green-gold bliss

Then suddenly, the heart laughs, wild

With hope of foot-loose summer-child

For where ten-thousand sun-beams smiled

Our famished faces sense spring’s kiss

We press our wishes to Time’s glass

Where snow-swaddled arrangements pass

In twirling, swirling choruses

Like minuets of hide-and-seek

While earth, a meek ice-mantled rose

Let’s old Man Winter tweak Her nose

And toes with howls; for oh, she knows

She holds a garden in Her cheek

© Janet Martin

Of Preparing For The Inevitable

When time has all its pockets drained

And its last hour spent

Where Final Winter has complained

Across earth’s continent

When high and low and in between

Are all one and the same

And Destiny unveils its scene

With He from whence we came

 

….when Time has granted its last plea

And planted its last bloom

And everything is history

Upon an ageless tomb

Save for the soul which time can never

Order with its law

…when we stand where Forever stills

Our arguments with awe

…when all that was will be no more

And all that IS remains

When God His love and wrath will pour

Once and for all; Amen

When Time is rolled up like a scroll

And immortality

Proves the existence of the soul

Pray then, where will you be?

© Janet Martin

Will we believe boldly

or ignore God's Grace coldly?

There is no in between!

...just as there is no in between

Heaven and Hell...

We mourn with those who mourn

but

not as those without hope

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven .....great is your reward in heaven." Matt 5: 10-12

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But ye, beloved, remember ye the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

That they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.

 These are they who make separations, sensual, having not the Spirit.

 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,

 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jude 17-21