Un-expectation's Delight

 The coast was not clear for cross-country skiiing today,

but rather like a choppy sea...Gorgeous!

Surprised by God, His artistry so often unexpected

Yet, if we look we surely see His grandeur interjected

Where often, off the beaten path and lesser traveled places

His tender mercy makes us laugh with unexpected graces

The laureate of loveliness delights us with pure wonder

And tends to mankind’s happiness with Masterstrokes of splendor

Where none can satisfy the eye like the God of creation

Where none can awe the heart with art like the God of salvation

© Janet Martin

As Love Is Our Witness...

As Love is our witness

Worship cannot hide

God of forgiveness

Forgive foolish pride

Forgive the falsehood

We try to disguise

As something pure and good

When it is lies

Forgive the stumble

When face-first, we sprawl

You make us humble

By letting us fall

When we try to impress

Oh Lord, you know

How to remind us

By Whose grace we go

© Janet Martin

 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Prov.16:18

I will never forget a very humbling fall years ago when I worked at an in-store bakery. 

I had dashed (most likely in unnecessary frenzy)

 to the walk-in freezer (after the time of day when I had hoped to be home)

standing on some hurriedly-piled boxes to reach something on the top shelf

when the stack gave out and I landed heels over head with the door open

and a truck-driver delivering goods happening to pass by just then...

He laughed til he cried then quickly came to my aid

where I was trying to right myself (esp my dress!!!)

He asked my forgiveness while dissolving on the floor in a fit of laughter again, saying 

it was truly one of the 'funniest things' he had ever seen.

I, mortified beyond words returned to the bakery in a much meeker state of mind.

The Naked Truth (about This; Love)

 This thoroughfare offers much to applaud

Free to enjoy, by the grace of God

This thoroughfare of push and shove

Of glittered grit and grin

Of failure’s temporary glove

And triumph’s weathered skin

This constant attempt to succeed

In this most human race

Where we are all creatures of need

Dependent on God’s grace

This place of ‘all-first-timers here’

Learning though our mistakes

Where longing whets the tender tear

And laughter heals its aches

Where all we have can leave a hole

Beyond the reach of Touch

A hunger we cannot console

With food, fortune and such

Where love stripped of pretentious noise

And vain-glorious pride

Stands naked in its tomb of toys

With nothing left to hide

Where all it boasts is not enough

‘til we discover This;

The height of happiness and love

Is found through what one gives

© Janet Martin

 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.  

 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.  

 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others.  

 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; 

but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Luke 21:1-4

Oh, What A Love

(this song and this video will give you holy-hallelujah thrill-chills!)

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof

Oh what a comfort to know

Whatever happens, His mercy and love

Cradles both wonder and woe

No might or merchant can usurp the One

Who was, Who IS and will be

Heaven and earth rest in ‘His will be done’

Provident Power is He

No creature care is too big or too small

To entrust to love’s scarred Hand

Whether we flourish or whether we fall

He is the One in command

Nothing unseen or mistaken by He

Who has nothing left to prove

Though He is oft misunderstood while we

Lap from His wellspring of love

Circumstance and consequence may afflict

Heartache and hurt test and try

Where footsteps fall in the halls of a gift

The Giver reasons the Why

For, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof

All they who dwell therein

Comprise His uttermost language of love

Faithful Forgiver of sin

He is the Father who offered His Son

His Most Beloved, to be

The sacrifice for the wrongs we have done

His loss for our Victory

Though He is God since before Time began

He suffered Death, not in vain

We are the Reason His love had a plan

Where Heaven waits to explain

© Janet Martin

Hell's Kitchen

Let’s make temptation

Feel like the right thing

Feather its outcome

With ribbons and string

Let’s make Sin’s poison

Look and taste rather nice

Let’s sweeten death’s symptoms

With sugar and spice

Let’s make the cost of love

Seem much too large

Let’s offer lots of stuff

At no extra charge

Let’s keep the sheep-ple

Distracted until

They find out too late

The full price of the thrill

© Janet Martin