Sunrise Song...

Ah, nice, we say and perhaps pray

Before duty of day-to-day

Fills our hands

With toils demands

To keep the howling wolves at bay

Good, good to work but not to shirk

The Giver of love’s pain and perk

This is the day

The Lord has made

For farmer, teacher, preacher, clerk

Thought authors deed that falls like seed

Blessing and burden intercede

Where with fresh chance

God always grants

His grace sufficient for each need

Soon supper smells and citadels

Toll toil and twilight’s dusky bells

Ah, nice we say

Oh, pray we pray

To He who refills mercy’s wells

© Janet Martin

To Today's Legacy-authors

 This is the life-summary of Clarence; a faithful husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather

whose funeral visitation I attended last evening...

Such a testimony causes us to re-evaluate our own Time-expenditure, does it not?

What, when we have writ our story

Will the sum of our days be?

When death gathers up life’s glory

Was it lived for God or ‘me’?

Inhale, exhale, mercy thunders

Granting choice another chance

Morning, heaped with untried wonders

Offers kind deliverance

A new day hinged to spent ages

A new day to make amends

A new day to write on pages

That our final exhale ends

What, when grace ceases its glory

Will the sum of these days be?

When death gathers up life’s story

Was it writ for God or ‘me’?

© Janet Martin

Thank-account

 Came home much later than I thought I would from a funeral visitation for a friend's father,

Supper dishes are heaped in the sink 'cause Matt and Victoria attend a youth-group

Bible Study on Wed. nights...
but with some keen reminders recently of the ephemeral-ness of life/health

this sink full of dirty dishes is a thing of beauty when

one has the health and strength to do something about it!

 ...tomorrow;-)

When we start to count our blessings

Rather than all that we lack

Soon it leaves the mouth confessing

We get more than we give back

When we start to chart the favors

Showered on us day and night

Soon it fills the heart with flavors

Too manifold to recite

When we stop the pity party

And the doleful woe-is-me

We begin to feel a hearty

Thank-the-Lord humility

When we take a tender tally

Of daily blessings renewed

Pray, whether hilltop or valley

For a song of gratitude

© Janet Martin

Where Now we See In Part...

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
1 Cor.13:12 NLT

 

This bark that navigates the storms of life could not withstand

The crash of waves where earthy grave insists on its demand

Yet, beneath each frail vessel is a Bulwark safe and sure

Hush now, the Hand that calms the gale will keep the soul secure

He will not fail though some insist that He already has!

The Grail that pours time’s moment-mist through mortal’s hour-glass

Does not reveal the why or wherefore of Love undeterred

Though He does not forsake us through the power of His Word

Awesome Forevermore is too awesome to comprehend

Our gaze is oft transfixed on one-way ways destined to end

My friend, don’t be deceived, this little tittle we call Time

Is like a shadow-ladder that each soul of man must climb

…before forevermore; ah, we should not ignore the goal

That no one can evade as husk of breath unveils the soul

Where death is not the end though masterminds of unbelief

And enemies of God contend that dust is god and chief

Pity, pity the people who have heard with wooden ears

Instead of faith in God they cling to sticks to soothe their fears

They hate the Rod and staff that God uses to draw us back

With tender tears of love because He knows how much we lack

Life’s sorrow-storms that fill our eyes with all we cannot see

Are like an invitation to trust Mercy’s Deity

Just as we are, a mortal bark that cups Immortal Soul

Where now we see in part until death’s chill unveils The Whole

© Janet Martin

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Heb.11:1

Lighthouse...

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God;
he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations
of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Deut.7:9

Inept, the cold hard comfort of things pressed against our skin

Where flesh and blood appointments test the walls of worlds within

Time’s atrium of common care, of choice and consequence

Would be too much for man to bear but for Hope’s confidence

As strife runs rife and tests faith with its rival; fear and doubt

While life is but the wherewithal to who life is about

And all we have to lean on is the Word of God, my love

But if we humbly trust His Truth His Word will be enough

…to carry us from here to where there is no grief or pain

Beyond the cold, hard comfort of Things that cannot sustain

Where darkness would obliterate save for a Light within

God’s promises to navigate the way that leads to Him

© Janet Martin