More Than a Birthday Poem...

Twenty years old!

How can it be?!

No more teenagers in the family!

We are all blessed by your kind, sweet and sunny personality!

God bless you, Dear Daughter, as you seek to honour Him

with your choices, hopes and dreams

This is more than a birthday poem

To wish you happiness

More than a toast to hopes and dreams

And their smiling success

More than sweet sentiment’s flourish

Of tender, loving care

This is more than a birthday wish

My dear, it is a prayer

A prayer, that He who has begun

His lovely work in you

Would always be the Faithful One

You trust to see it through

A prayer for God’s grace to bestow

Faith enough to proceed

Knowing for all we cannot know

He knows just what we need

This is a prayer for joy and peace

(for this is happiness)

A prayer that wisdom would increase

And with it, thankfulness

A prayer that life returns to you

The loveliness you give

That God will shine His face on you

For as long as you live

© Janet Martin

The Lord bless you and keep you;

25 The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

26 The Lord [a]lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.” ’

Num.6: 24-26

Pure Delight's Promise

 

This wall-art was retired from one of the bedrooms to make room

for fresh décor, so I claimed it for an empty wall by the front door

 to read again and again to remind myself how joy may remain full!

Psalm 37:4

If we delight ourselves in He

Of boundless creativity

Who authored sky and sod and sea

With infinite authority

In He whose promises prevail

Whose love does not falter or fail

Who stands with us when storms assail

When mountains seem too sheer to scale

In He whose plan instills the seed

To sustain our physical need

But did for far more intercede

When from sin’s debt mankind was freed

…who became sin who knew no sin

Once and for all, an offering

Who saw the triumph death would bring

After the cross of suffering

If we delight ourselves in He

Who overthrew the enemy

And denied death its mastery

‘Ah grave, where is thy victory’

If we delight in He who gave

His Son, each one of us to save

So when we brave death’s sullen wave

Heaven, not hell will meet the grave

If delight in He whose art

Steals our breath and death’s cold smart

He will fulfill with joy, His part

In the desires of the heart

© Janet Martin

Delight in God- Charles Spurgeon

Because Time Flies...

This week I added two tots and an extra day to the childcare routine.

...as I repeat the weathered words-

Where did this last year go?!!

A year ago one of these tots was born,

then blink! 

she is one! and mom is back to work!

The wings that bear away the day 

Flash silver in the sun 

We from our heaps of frazzled fray 

And battles to be won 

Behold the Bird the draws the dawn 

From some far-phantom nest 

Ere dusk across the air is drawn 

And feathers fold in rest 

Where soon the fledgling, wild with youth 

Will join the gaping clan 

That wonders at the ageless truth 

Of fleeting days of man 

As Time’s momentous bird of prey 

Startles us with its wings 

And keens us to the changeless way 

Of ever-changing things 

We, tethered to Time’s old surprise 

Surge with the awe-struck throng 

Aboard the barge of  'how time flies’ 

That draws life’s charge along 

And teaches us to treasure more 

The moments as they come 

Because Time flies toward a door 

Not one will return from 

© Janet Martin 

Psalm 39:5
You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, 

and my lifetime as nothing before You. 

Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. 

Selah

Beauty-calls

Sometimes Jim just shakes his head when I say,

'Gotta go! Beauty calls!'😊

Ecclesiastes 3:11 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the human heart; 

yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Beauty calls, thus task will wait 

Before the sun falls past the gate 

And tucks the twinkle of today 

Its mementos of fleeting fray 

Into The Land of Far Away 

Beauty calls and bids us pause 

To marvel at its gifts because 

So much of life is harsh and hard 

So much of love is sorrow-scarred 

So much of laughter is tear-starred 

Beauty calls; we should reply 

So small beneath the big old sky 

But tall enough and not too old 

To balk at Duty’s rigid hold 

Beauty’s sheer wonders to behold 

With eyes to see and ears to hear 

And mouths to speak a word of cheer 

It dawns upon us wondrously 

We have the wherewithal to be 

Part of the call and the beauty 

© Janet Martin 

What Is the Purpose of a Poem?

A poem leaps, lilts, swirls and sings 

Syllabic waterfall

 

A poem may not change the world 

But it can cheer the heart 

A eureka of joy unfurled 

Where secret sorrows smart 

A poem is a butterfly 

Perched on spring’s budded hold 

From a cocoon of winter-sky 

Hope’s welkin wings unfold 

A poem is a gift composed 

Of ink-wrought counterpanes 

Where words weave wonders juxtaposed 

With troubles aches and strains 

A poem probes beneath Façade 

To tug at tender strings 

That keep the soul attuned to God 

Amidst a mess of Things 

A poem leaps, lilts, swirls and sings 

Syllabic waterfall 

It tumbles from ten-thousand springs 

In metered madrigal 

A poem paints its scenery 

With ordinary jot 

While spilling an art gallery 

To theaters of thought 

Ah, here a darling daisy beams 

And there a meadow-brook 

Its bank, a haven for daydreams 

A fishing pole, a book 

A poem unveils city-streets

Upon a parchment tray 

It teases sound of hurried feet

To paper-work-a-day  

A poem is the salt sea-air 

Where farewells sweep and surge 

And Poem is a tender prayer 

As seasons ebb and merge 

A poem is Beauty at large 

An earnest work of praise 

God, guide those who shoulder the charge 

Of unearthing its phrase 

...because a poem is far more

Than fickle fits of rhyme

A poem keens us to a Door

That ushers us from Time

© Janet Martin

Eternal Wonder

 

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, 

a worker who does not need to be ashamed, 

rightly dividing the word of truth.

2 Tim.2:15

Thy Word-Amy Grant

Keep God’s Word in your heart 

It is His hand held out 

To hold the shield that thwarts the darts 

Of fear and hate and doubt 

In God’s Word fix your trust 

While dark doom’s billows roll 

Faith keeps steadfast the bark of dust 

That harbours deathless soul 

Cling to the Word of God 

When storms of life assail 

It is the only staff and rod 

Of hope that will not fail 

God's word wakens within

The wonder of His love

And how to guard the heart from sin

That plagues this mortal glove

God’s Word is sure and true 

Heaven to earth’s embrace 

His grace the arms that draw us to 

Behold him face to face 

© Janet Martin

Heaven and earth will pass away, 

but My words will by no means pass away.

Matt.24:35

To the pure, all things are pure, 

but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, 

nothing is pure. 

In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. 

16They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. 

They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

Titus 1:15-16

Season of Lion and Lamb

 Back and forth the lion paced and raged on Mar.1

Pausing at times to gather his breath...

...only to return with renewed fury!!

and then finally! nothing quite sings hallelujah like headlights turning in the driveway

seeming to say hello, we made it home!!

March opened the door with a lion's roar

But we are not too glum

Because we know March is a door

To meadows yet to come

...then came March 2nd..FRIGID but friendly!

Brusque but beautiful!

Dawn

Dusk

To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven:

Eccles.3:1

Upon a broader meadow now 

The lion roars, the lamb replies 

A song is born beneath a bow 

That runs across snow-tousled skies 

To tumble like a mighty stream 

Through dreams that stir from winter’s sleep 

Where slumber melts beneath the gleam 

Of hope and dusk’s gold-embossed sweep 

That toasts the lion’s noisy sham 

Before the frolic of a lamb 

Earth’s stage is set to whet the duel 

Twixt spring’s advent and winter’s leave 

Now rampant runs the heady fuel 

The sparks both ire and reprieve 

Where morning hoists a pink beach ball 

That Old Man Winter tries to pop 

But cannot scale the polished hall 

The ball rolls up too far to stop 

He throws a tantrum while spring grins 

This is a fight he never wins 

Track records sometimes take a bit 

To prove that some things never change 

In spite of howling hissy-fit 

That spills its sparks to rill and range 

No one can stay the Hand of Time 

Not winter, nay, not even spring 

The belfry from whence seasons chime 

Dangles from an ethereal string 

To set the stage where roars resound 

With meadows where lambs leap and bound 

© Janet Martin 

...and now Mar. 3 waits to make its moments known!

A pretty intro indeed!

Come To Jesus

 Come to Jesus - Chris Rice

One scandal after another after another...

One we are all a part of; Sin

We all need Jesus

for there is no one righteous, no, not one

So when they continued asking him, 

he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 

He that is without sin among you,

let him first cast a stone at her.

John 8:7

Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, 

because He will save His people from their sins."

Acts 4:12

Salvation is found in no one else, 

for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind 

by which we must be saved."

Come to Jesus, 

Full forgiveness 

Waits the sinner to immerse 

Come to Jesus 

He releases 

Condemnation’s 

Woeful curse 

What is man 

But bent and broken 

‘neath a debt of guilt and shame 

Come to Jesus 

Mercy frees us 

There is hope in Jesus’ Name 

Come to Jesus 

Heavy-laden 

Come to love that will not fail 

Lay down dread 

And regret’s burden 

Death and hell will not prevail 

Let the rivers 

Of salvation 

In scarlet redemption flow 

There is no more 

Condemnation 

To sinner’s washed white as snow 

Come to Jesus 

He receives us 

Without prejudice and blame 

Come to Jesus 

Trust His promise 

‘to pardon is why He came’ 

Do not let the 

Lies of evil 

Keep you bound by doubt’s dark hour 

This is but 

The blight of Eden 

Seeking who he may devour 

Come to Jesus 

Rock of ages 

Anchoring the storm-tossed Soul

Come to Jesus 

He will save us 

Only faith can make us whole 

© Janet Martin