Worldwide Fellowmen...

Suddenly Covid 19 has turned the world into a close-knit community!

 Let's all look out for the welfare of each other! 

Do you know an overtired healthcare worker 

you could cheer in a safe, practical way?

How small and near we are

No one is far away

Where walls and oceans cannot bar

The flight of prayers we pray

So in this neighbourhood

Of worldwide fellowman

With love we lift our prayers to God

And trust His Master Plan

© Janet Martin

Beggar's Buffet

What will we choose today?

We choose…

Faith or fear

Hope or despair

Darkness or light

Panic or prayer

Courage or doubt

Treasure or dust

Worry or peace

Through Whom we trust...

...the headlines blasting

With the hour's latest 'new'
or

God's Word, everlasting

Unchanging and true

© Janet Martin

Everything We Need...

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:9-12

Hope lights earth’s sky-wide wick

And woos the night away

Where dawn cuts darkness to the quick

And so begins Today

Today is always new

An ‘all together’ race

Of people privy only to

A moment-metered grace

Grace that does not withhold

Its vowed sufficiency

But overflows an ancient mold

With love's kind clemency

Clemency from a throne

Of command unsurpassed

Where nothing is new or Unknown

In time’s communal cast

…cast with uttermost care

To a most careless breed

Forgetful to the point of prayer

Too oft by fear and greed

Greed for what is not ours

Fear’s lack of gratitude

While heaven, like a garden, flow’rs

With God’s Mercy renewed

Renewed for mankind’s hope

He lights earth’s sky-wide wick

Where ev’rything we need to cope

Cuts Darkness to the quick

© Janet Martin

  Again Jesus spoke to them, saying,  

“I am the light of the world. 

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, 

but will have the light of life.”

 John 8:12

Trouble's Shining Hour

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  

 He was with God in the beginning.  

 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴

 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  

 The light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

The world groans beneath threats of doom and forecasts of despair

These days were written in God’s Word, we, beckoned to prepare

The Light that goes before us will not waver or grow dim

Lift up your voice in joyful chorus of worship to Him

The law of night to day steadfastly stays its ordained course

For none can sway the mind of God or move His Hand by force

Then lean on He who does not change like shifting shadows will

While all the words of prophecy unfold, pass and fulfill

Man’s deduction and rhetoric composed by what ‘they say’

Serves often to consume us when we ought to pray and pray

Dear Father, rich in mercy bearing witness to our plight

Make this the Shining Hour when some turn from dark to Light

For not in good but troubled times, we see our frailty

How without You, hope is a sad state of futility

So, Father up in heaven, let us hear your tender woo

And pray its Shining Hour draws our hearts and minds to You

© Janet Martin

 If anyone speaks, he should speak as one conveying the words of God.

 If anyone serves, he should serve with the strength God provides, 

so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ,

 to whom be the glory and the power forever and ever. 

Amen.

1 Pet.4:11

Until Then...

 A few 'Until then' moments of my week as Grandma and Child caregiver...

Until the curtain falls

On all the plans we made

As One greater than duty calls

And dust to dust is laid

Until we reach the place

Where you and I must part

And what was once love’s face-to-face

Must remain heart-to-heart

Until both good and ill

No longer cheer or test

Replies of fury or goodwill

Of motives cursed or blessed

Until our longings fade

Like daylight into dark

And life follows the airborne grade

As surely as a spark

Until no brook-or-lane

No school-girls dream-and-play

No let-the-boy-not-wish-in-vain

For love to come his way

Until there is no ‘yet’

No spring-tide of new birth

No autumn colored pirouette

Of leaf wafting to earth

Until then, let’s just love

Before time’s toll is stilled

And we fold like an empty glove

Of numbered days fulfilled

© Janet Martin