But Mostly Lord, We Thank You For...

Yesterday many from our church family had the privilege of witnessing 26 baptisms, 

listening to 26 declarations of faith in Jesus in a language foreign to us in dialect 

but familiar to us in praise. 

Hallelujah!

One line stands out to me still as I reflect on the day; a line in a prayer,

"but mostly Lord, we thank You for Your Son, Jesus Christ"

because believers know there is no other name whereby we must be saved and
 without faith in Him it is impossible to please Him!

Oh, what a glorious reason we have for Hope,

for waking up each morning and pressing on in spite of all that life seems not...

Jesus reigns, victorious over sin and death!


1 John 5:13-14
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

…for courage to step forward

Into Time’s Great Unknowns

For kindness of new morning

To polish stepping stones

We thank You for each season

Filled with favors from high

But above all, Hope’s Reason

Your love and grace supply

…for bread to feed the body

For Word to feed the soul

For mercy heaped on mercy

While age to ages roll

For loved ones to come home to

For rest when toil is done

But most of all we thank You

For Jesus Christ, Your Son

For harvest’s holy humbling

For mysteries of prayer

Where words, oft frail and fumbling

Climb earth-to-heaven’s stair

…and there You release Something

That faith alone can see

Your peace past understanding

Through Truth that sets us free

For blessings that we hold, Lord

We offer songs of praise

For more than we deserve, Lord

You overflow our days

But then we think how beggared

Each earth-blessing would be

Without Jesus who suffered

And died at Calvary

…to purchase mankind’s pardon

To triumph over death

To grant to living’s burden

More than mere-breath-to-breath

…to put Your worth within us

Where hallelujahs swell

With thank-you God, for Jesus

Who saves our souls from hell

© Janet Martin

 Galatians 3:26
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

(doesn't this promise move you to humble tears of joy and worship?!)
Doesn't this promise move us to forgive others as He forgave us; fully?!)

What Jesus puts within us
Nobody else can give
Love's holy, highest purpose
In every day we live! 

1 Peter 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Days of Old

In case we forget...this is not yet

 Past's newest Day of old!
This is the day the Lord has made
Which soon echoes enfold
This is a gift soon set adrift
On seas of smiles and sighs 
So live-laugh-love, for soon enough
Hello turns to good-byes

We stopped for a picnic one heat-wave noon,
Laid beneath a latticework of hymns
Treated to one of time's Best-of-all tunes
Sea-song snared in lofty, green limbs  

When the wind wails,
Wild and plaintive

When the wood is
stripped of songs

When the world is
like a painting

Poised on echoes
Of bygones

When we wake to
 Sounds of silence
When green fields
Have lost their glow
When the give and
take of moments
Startles summer-
hearts with snow

Then we’ll turn to
trace the edges

Of this picture
In our hold

When starred silver
frosts the hedges

Of sweet summer's
Days of old

© Janet Martin

A Rhyme About Time...it's touch-and-such

Time is fleet of foot, love

Wind-song in green leaves

Everything it gives, love

In time it retrieves

Everything it teaches

Becomes nothing much

Unless knowledge reaches

From heads into touch

...and unless it changes

The way we use ‘Now’

Time simply estranges

The hand from the plow

© Janet Martin  

 Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Ps.90:12

Another Porch...because the world can never have too many porches!

I'm finally getting to Poetic Bloomings Sunday prompt; whatchamacallit!
 a poem about your blog name
The purpose of this blog-porch; a place to relax and be poetically and/or pho-etically refreshed!

Yesterday's porch-sit with a little girl included a story about
'How I got my Bangs'
Well, she said (after making sure I think they are beautiful!!)
you see, I got a toy stuck in my hair then my brother said he can get it out so he got some scissors and then! out came the toy AND a BIG BLUNK of hair
and that's when I got my bangs!

We also played a super-intense car-game while she enjoyed a chocolate ice-cream cone
and I, black coffee...how to play??
pick one or two colors and see who gets the most vehicles of that color going by
(Cat column gets all the colors not picked by players...)
OH!!! the suspense when we can hear a car and the score is tie,
and then the ear-splitting shriek if it was her color and she could relish those sweetest words of all
 " I winned!"
( an educational game too;
according to our records most people drive black, gray, silver and white vehicles)

Our porch is as modest as they come but still somehow holds little pieces of almost-heaven!

...canners cooling

 ...curly-headed tots,
and sometimes flower pots til they die😏

Porches are for sitting

For sipping cups of tea

For reflection or knitting

Or reading poetry

Porches are a haven

Of blessed quietness

A place of relaxation

And home-sweet-happiness

Porches are for pausing
To ponder simple things
To put aside our fussing
And feel like common kings

A place to get together

To watch the shadows fall

To share in friendly chatter

Or say nothing at all

To cherish words like ‘we’, love

To share laughter and tears

And marvel at the ease of

Days soon turned into years

Porches are for flowers
For songsters with guitars
For watching summer showers
  Or cartwheel clowns or cars

Porches are a picture

Of the sweet by and by

When we all get together

In God's front porch in the sky

© Janet Martin

 

While We Work...

Sometimes task upon task can cast a ho-hum shadow over would-be hallelujah-hymns, 

...but only until we turn our work into worshipping the Author of salvation!

Slice-dice-chop

slip in a splash we slopped

wipe the sweat from 'not-done-yet'

and give, nay live praise to God

Hope, for all its hurt and hunger

Finds fresh footholds, wings to fly

We who believe will be stronger

Than they who doubt and deny

Praise the Author of creation

Far above our mortal ways

He bestows love’s celebration

To life’s commonest of days

Mercy flings its floodgates open

Everybody qualifies

Dares us to desire more than

That which we see with our eyes

Hallelujah fills our ho-hum

Stills despair’s demons that lurk

Puts purpose into this sojourn

If we worship while we work

© Janet Martin

 ...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, 

they will walk and not be faint.

Isa.40:31