A Hellish Thought!

 Imagine if we had to plead our case

Before Almighty God

and prove that we deserved the pardon

Purchased through Jesus' shed blood

Imagine if He never said

Whoever believeth in Me

Imagine if Mercy was dead

what dread each hell-bound day would be

I faded in and out of an old black and white movie yesterday while trying to sleep off a fever...

In the movie You Can't Take It With You a tenant who was about to be evicted
by a greedy business tycoon/landlord came to plead for mercy
but as he stood before the wealthy landlord the trembling man was speechless.
When his landlord roared 'what do you want?!" the man replied

 'I came to ask for mercy but now I can't think of a single reason why I deserve it!'

Imagine if this was the day

God took his mercy-gifts away

And we would wake to realize

There was no Ear for human cries

No light to wake the day with gold

No promise of a Hand to hold

No death-defeated glory-goal

No hope for man’s undying soul

No Love, for God is love, and He

Through Mercy, loves us faithfully

(for if we had to plead our case

Not one could merit Mercy’s grace)

Because all of us know full well

Without mercy, we deserve hell

The heart, desperately wicked, yes

Full of deceit and selfishness

And no one yet has walked this earth

Who was redeemed by one’s own worth

Oh, if the love of God withdrew

The Mercy that saves me and you

What awful dread each day would be

Exercised in futility

Imagine if this was the day

God took redemption’s seal away

Imagine if, for just an hour

God turned His back, withheld His Pow’r

Imagine if we could not wake

And after we had ceased to shake

All we could do is scream and scream

Because it was not ‘just a dream’

Imagine it; then does it stir

Thankfulness meeker and humbler

And does it make us overjoyed

To think on Mercy, never void

To help us do the best we can

To love God first, then fellowman

© Janet Martin

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. 

It is by grace you have been saved!

Eph.2:4-5

Because of Mercy I can sing this song at the top of my lungs!

Of Mostly Innocence and Curls...(or In the Training of our Smallest Soul-diers)

Lately conversation sometimes turns to those not so cute moments 

that the cutest among us can 'throw'!

It takes a lot of patience, prayer and time to train our little Soul-diers!

(the classes that create wise moms and dads are not without pain
and humbling that comes through stumbling)

 Mr Mostly-Innocence-and-curls has no idea 

how the 'news' on the board beside him will impact his life😀

How vital this command;  

Train up a child in the way he should go: 

and when he is old, he will not depart from it

Prov.22:6.

(Photos by Emily Curry, Mr. Mostly Innocent's mom)

Once we were all small boys and girls

And mostly-innocence-and-curls

But, then the signs began to show

When comprehending the word ‘no’

Soft as the lilt of leaf that swirls

Grows mostly-innocence-and-curls

Til mom and daddy feel the tug

…ah, baby needs more than just ‘hug’

What test-of-will shrill shriek unfurls

From mostly-innocence-and-curls

And what great negligence is wrought

If  Little Child is left untaught

More precious than diamonds and pearls

Is mostly-innocence-and-curls

The treasure of love’s sigh and pain

So worth each try and try-again

For love cherishes boys and girls

Of mostly-innocence-and-curls

It takes the time to reprimand

And train the mind that moves the hand

So when it seems so hard to do

And patience needs another ‘you’

Remember soon time's hand un-twirls

The innocence from mostly-curls

© Janet Martin

Do You Hear It?

Listen, the shriek of blue-jay cries

Listen, implores the leaf that lies

Where summer swept the earth and then

Let autumn have its way again

Listen, intones the wind that moans

Across frost fields and cobblestones

Listen, the plume pleads with bowed head

As earth with death of bloom is wed

Listen, beckons the barren tree

Listen, cautions the stricken lea

Listen, the sound of silence swells

And seeps to winnowed woods and dells

Listen, the wide world seems to wail

Listen, to nature’s parable

Listen, to what The Psalmist says

About the sum of mankind’s days

Listen, the shriek of blue-jay cries

Listen, implores the leaf that lies

Beneath the skies where winds cajole

The dust-to-dust of all but Soul

Listen, ah, can you hear the tear
As dark is rent by first light's air
Listen, ah, can you hear the toll
Of all that passes...but the Soul

© Janet Martin

 For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass— 

he blooms like a flower of the field;

when the wind has passed over, it vanishes,

 and its place remembers it no more.

Psalm 103:14-16 

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, 

but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; 

 the grass withers and the flowers fall

  but the word of the Lord stands forever.” 

And this is the word that was proclaimed to you.

1 Peter 1:23-25

Autumn... (with a bit 'o Butter, Salt and Pepper)

This poem started with a bit o' squash,

stubble

 and silk...

The milkweed pod is plump, like mini-pillows stuffed with silk

The landscape, Nature’s Magnum Opus leaves the heart agape

The wind, a minstrel strumming brittle strings of corn-stalk ilk

The field, a street of stubble-gold a-wash with twilight’s cape

Autumn unfurls its wonder-world in leaf-shaped plunder, oh

Autumn undoes the awning of the woodland’s pantheon

Autumn unravels tree tops in a storm of auburn snow

Autumn is a buffet of marmalade and cinnamon

The hill is like a pedestal showcasing Frames of Fall

The dell is like a cradle where farewells of summer sleep

The brook bulges with babble of petal-flecked madrigal

The garden is an echo-land of laughter and bare feet

Autumn arranges pictures on earth’s sky-wide window-sill

Autumn exchanges green-leaf gilt for vermilion appeal

Autumn estranges us from sweat-drenched brow with sassy chill

Autumn eclipses expectation with its color-wheel

The pumpkin basks in glow of short-lived popularity

The apple is a super-star blushing ‘neath Jack Frost’s kiss

The spud is full of finest supper-possibility

The squash and rutabaga boast of roasted veggie-bliss

Autumn ushers in evenings of fireside and tea

Autumn returns the curlicue of smoke to chimney flues

Autumn restores the shoreline to the lone roar of the sea

Autumn lowers the bars of dusk with brusque and brooding blues

The morning wakes in soft plum tulle, rain-gray or silver frost

The afternoon is steeped in flavors no caldron can snare

The evening tumbles in and soon the darling day is lost

Beneath a big umbrella black as coal and light as air

Autumn scatters its notes across a tattered music sheet

Autumn shatters the coppice where a dirge-like silence falls

Autumn pit-pitter-patters on the roof like pixy feet

Autumn composes ballads for a ballroom without walls

The turkey finds no place to hide; its numbered days are spent

The porch is mum and jack-o-lantern pretty-as-can-be

The blue-jay bullies smaller prey, greedy and discontent

He dominates the bird-feeder without apology

Autumn graces the places and faces where footsteps slow

Autumn erases cricket-song; it tweaks tan cheeks to pink

Autumn throbs like a rhapsody written long, long ago

Where we are all still smitten by The Hand that spills the ink

The oven fills the kitchen with warm welcome without words

The cellar groans with goodness waiting to turn to ‘delish’

Ah, who could guess what homey happiness hides in plain gourds

A bit ‘o butter, salt and pepper make a five-star dish

Autumn rouses a raging appetite for love, it seems

Autumn authors a sorrow full of joy for summer’s splash

Autumn evokes a somber sort of tug of worn-out dreams

Autumn stokes musky embers with a rake that turns to ash

© Janet Martin

With a pic for almost every line it was hard to pic/pick only a few...