Armour-Awareness...

Forgive the Poem-flood. I'm posting this past week's writing so I don't get lazy 

and think I can get away with not thinking for a bit ;-)

How in the world can we survive the trouble and the tests

Or easy explanations from the Tempter’s cunning quests

And how do we decipher right from wrong or wrong from right

If we decide to turn our eyes from The Word’s Guiding Light

Pride goes before destruction; haughtiness before the fall

But Death and Resurrection’s triumph hails to one and all

Then how will survive if we disregard Calvary

And darken understanding with the lesser gods we see

This churlish mind is master of excuses, ruses, lies

Our trophies of disaster deck the ashes of disguise

Still, Mercy’s sacred purchase peals in every gifted breath

Then how will we survive if we exchange God’s grace for death

…for we will never be enough to save our soul’s from hell

Without the power of the cross, how dark death’s doleful knell

And how will we survive if we Taste grace, then spit it out

To stuff faces with flavours that will poison faith with doubt

How in the world can we survive the pitfall and the snare

If instead of God’s armor we choose sin’s entangling fare

And how, without His Word to be the lamp unto our feet

Will we be fit for Heaven when soul and the Saviour meet

© Janet Martin

Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

But I, with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the Lord.

Jonah 2:8-9

Your Mother's Heart...

 

It often looks like nothing much

Packed lunches; broom and mop

The tidy up and ‘extra-touch’

Of home-sweet-home on top

It might just look like ‘shoes to fill’

Or fresh-baked bread or pie

Or laundry washed and heaped until

It seems to reach the sky

Or hug and kiss, goodnight, sleep tight

Or ‘don’t forget to pray’

Or fingers washed or noses wiped

Or teardrops brushed away

…or window-sills with flowerpots

Or glass bowl filled with fruit

Or scolding naughty little tots

Lest seed of sin takes root

Or quirks that sometimes make you laugh

(Or roll your eyes a smidge)

Or keepsakes, like the photographs

That cover up the fridge

What do you see, dear girl and boy

Just dishes washed and dried?

After hot, home-cooked supper-joy

When it is cold outside

Does it just look like life to you?

Or chores performed in vain?

Shake-off-the-mats-and-run-the-vacuum

Through-the-house-again

Well, I would like to tell dear

These common works of art

Are not all that they would appear

They are your mother’s heart

© Janet Martin

If Time Would Tell It's 'Wait-and-See'

 Until our internet is working a little better this blog will be like a book without pictures...

(or links:) 

If we would know what high or low was waiting in the days ahead

We would be torn each night and morn between worlds of delight and dread

And we would peer through today’s cheer toward some morrow’s sorrow-storm

And miss the bliss and kiss of This because of Trouble’s looming form

If time would tell and boldly spell its wait-and-see so we could know

We would be bent with sad lament even if we had miles to go

Before we met the darker Yet that drains the rhythm from the rhyme

Our hearts would break for future’s sake and make us old before our time

I’m glad God gives the life one lives in moment-metered miles to brave

We need not bear tomorrow’s care to drive us to an early grave

But trust and pray, each day-to-day, for his divine Presence to lead

His faithful Word is undeterred; our God will supply every need (Phil.4:19)

© Janet Martin

Hope-Sweet-Hope

It fuels dreams and musters trust

It braves belief before the flow’r

And fills our frames of mortal dust

With The Immortal’s awesome pow’r

It lifts the heart from dark despair

And shifts the gaze from trouble’s tide

As it turns worry’s woe to prayer

And helps us find life’s brighter side

It whisper’s ‘upsy-daisy, dears’

And gathers up the down and out

To kiss away their fears and tears

And offer faith to would-be-doubt

It grants the confidence to try

Replacing dead ends with a goal

And when death slips twixt you and I

It is the Wing that wakes of Soul

© Janet Martin

What Makes a Man

 This would have been posted on May 2nd

(Matt's Birthday poem)

Happy 21st Birthday, Matt!

It is the mind that makes the man

Not his physique, his health- wealth- tan

Who Table of Thought entertains

The output of the man explains

…where every action (swift or not)

Is first the dinner-guest of Thought

It is the mind that makes the man

It feeds the thought that feeds the plan

Where plan fosters then fathers deed

Its fruit exposing hidden seed

…where no one can fight sin and win

Without the might of God within

It is the mind that makes the man

Wise then, is he who seeks God’s plan

How else can he keep his way pure?

Or taunts of the Tempter endure?

And how can he be ‘man enough’?

Be strong, yet kind, tender, yet tough

How can he face the foe of Truth?

Or find the right path in his youth?

How can his steps fall undeterred?

By keeping in his heart, God’s Word

Because without this, pity then

The mind that makes beasts out of men

© Janet Martin

How can a young man keep his way pure?

By living according to your Word.

I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees.

Psalm 119: 9-12