July Loveliness

I turned this July evening stroll to the garden to pick potato bugs, into a mini-photo shoot, but the lens

can't quite capture the vibrancy of the colors;

deep denim-blue skies, 

gleaming gold wheat fields and due to all the rain, 

rich green summer foliage!

The gales have gentled now, that long we rued

Earth throbs with bud and seed’s God-ordained sum

The limb is lush with leaf, ere winds denude

The woodland tress that zephyrs toss and strum

Showers steep July-scapes in green and gold

The hymn that nature sings rings far and wide

Where earth’s page brims with beauty to behold

...denim-blue heavens crown the countryside

…where wildflowers freckle, fringe, gild and grace

Hill, hollow, ditch and dell, roadside, oh my

And we pick an impromptu resting place

To gaze and praise the Author of July

Where, because life is rife with care-to-bear

We could be prone to miss This Loveliness

That overflows dirt vaults with lilies fair

As God bends to kiss earth with heaven-ness

...where gales have gentled now, that long we rued

Before warm breezes tumbled from the sky 

And we reply with songs of gratitude

For The Sweet Loveliness we call July

© Janet Martin

For Every Choice We Make...

 order your copy by clicking this link

Many of us who know him, have the privilege of watching/walking beside/praying for

 this dear man, Richard Haverkamp, (author of the above book)

caring for his beloved wife, who suffers from dementia, 

and is now in a long-term care facility, but he still spends most of every day with her

and is finding beneath this heavy load, The God who is (still) real!!

He has chosen to be faithful for better or worse, 

for rich or poor, 

in sickness and in health

till doth doth part! 

He is proving to her that loves her with all his heart!

Please pray for his strength and encouragement!

It makes me re-evaluate my choices;

how they reflect who I most love! 

Do I honor God by loving those well that He has placed in my life?

With every choice there is a 'consequence/recompense'.

May we strive to be conscientious as we speak

through the voice of choice!

For we either honor God with our choices, or dishonor Him! 

For every choice we make there is a sacred price to pay

For better or for worse we bless or curse the gifted day

With thought and word and deed we heed or disregard the Hand

That stays the stars and splays the bars of dawn by His command

The sacred voice of choice reveals the heart of you and I

It proves who we love most without word-clout to clarify/justify

For better or for worse we bless or curse the Hand that grants

Goodness and mercy for each reason-seasoned circumstance

The winding Path of Aftermath runs through our do-and-say

For every choice we make there is a sacred price to pay

How often we forget, as we are met with ‘me or Thee/thee’

For every choice we make love takes responsibility

© Janet Martin

Romans 14:11-13

For it is written:

“As I live, says the Lord,

Every knee shall bow to Me,

And every tongue shall confess to God.”

12So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.

13Therefore let us not judge one another [d]anymore,

 but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block 

or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.

July-High or Season of Sweet Summertime

 Some summer/ July 'highs/highlights'...

Freshly-picked supper!

Yesterday's Lunch!

'Where every flower-dear is fair of face...'

'And every shower-dear a gift from God'

Freshly-popped lily!

And Queen Ann decks herself in finest lace

And Daisy dares with ‘loves-me-loves-me-not’

Living’s unrivaled adrenaline rush

Beauty unbridled in sequence sublime

Colorful cadence of hymns, petal-plush

This is the season of Sweet Summertime

Breeze tousles treetops, stirs leafy-green sighs

Porches are perches for popsicle-snacks

Meadows are churches beneath smiling skies

Earthy pews bid worshippers to relax

Arbors are lavished with vine-woven lace

Gardens are ravished with vegetable-fare

Nothing in summer is quite commonplace

Pity the one who has no time to spare

No time to lie with ear pressed to the throb

In nature’s chest; let it soothe creature care

No time to watch butterfly flit and bob

Or to consider the lilies so fair

Come, let us cater to wanderlust’s lure

Weather the verge of the surge of farewell

Savor the flavor of summer, so pure

Tolling a swansong in each flower-bell

Soak in the silver-soft laughter of life

Cherish its brief afternoon of romance

List to the ballad of roses run rife

While Father Time and Mother Nature (slow)dance

No reason needed, dear, just sit a bit

For none can tether Time to mid-July

All one can do is to revel in it

Linger where bronze wheat fields bend with goodbye

And Queen Ann decks herself in finest lace

And Daisy dares with ‘loves-me-loves-me-not’

Where every flower-dear is fair of face

And every shower-dear a gift from God

Crinoline swish of welkin gowns brush by

Heart skips a beat; reciprocates with rhyme

While happiness soars to new July-high

Here in the season of sweet Summertime

© Janet Martin

While happiness soars to new July-high

Here in the season of sweet Summertime

Not Simply to the Call Be True...

Wow! The devotions from the past few days

(from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers)

are challenging mental/spiritual comfort-zones!

Not to the call be true but faithful to the One who calls

Who tries the crux of motive to expose prideful pitfalls

And test our allegiance to the Master in Command

Repentance and obedience must needs go hand in hand

The Giver and the Taker of love’s sacred charge abides

Where fear’s dark breakers roll His holy Sovereignty presides

How wily is the Tempter, but he never overtakes

A very present Helper who never leaves or forsakes

The happiness we hunger for cannot be found until

We humbly and wholly adore He who bids us be still

And know that He is God; He who is ruler over all

Is He who calls; to Him be true, not simply to the call

© Janet Martin

Ps.46

God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the Lord has done,

the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease

to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields[d] with fire.

10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Awesome Absolute

In this age of mass-confusion

the awesome absolute of Truth is dearer and clearer than ever!

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:

 no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

John 17:17
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

Below-Ps.119:33-40 & 52-60

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:32

Truth does not shift or sway

Its pillar never fails

But is an infallible stay

To counter counter-gales 

To correct errant thought

To teach us right from wrong

A lie authors confusion, but

Truth is a bulwark strong

Because Truth is from God

Its Word is bona fide

Without His Word, truth is a fraud

A pitfall forged from pride

To implement demise

Thus, we must be astute

Truth indulges no compromise

Its law is absolute

Truth is a steadfast Light

Unyielding in its glow

It arms us with power and might

Wherever we may go

Its Source, the Word of God

No other ‘truth’ endures

But His trustworthy staff and rod

Shepherds, guides and assures

…then, while opinions chime

In much conflicting talk

Truth stands, unfazed by sands of Time

Founded upon a Rock

A Wing ‘neath which to hide

A compass on life’s sea

Truth does not change but will abide

Throughout eternity

© Janet Martin

Psalm 119:160
The entirety of Your word is truth, 

and all Your righteous judgments endure forever.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. 

We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, 

full of grace and truth.

I Am a Master of Excuse

This excerpt from the message below moved me to tears...

Oh! that this would be my true ambition.

Christian contentment

is the direct fruit

of having no higher ambition

than to belong to the Lord

and to be entirely

at His disposal.

Alistair Begg

The Secret of Contentment

  

I am a master of excuse and pious coquetry

I fit finely inside replies of I and my and me

I am far, far too readily induced to compensate

For second miles I’d rather not suffer; the cost too great

I rise to meet the day and pray, then forget easily

That I can do all I can do through Christ who strengthens me

For when I repent and believe I am ‘mine own’ no more

But ought to be devoted to the Saviour I adore

And ought to be, with every gifted breath and day, content

Because by grace I have been saved; the temple veil is rent

And I, invited to boldly approach the throne of grace

Will receive grace and mercy to supply each need I face

I am a wretch; yet Christ loves with an everlasting love

By His divine power He fits me for Heaven above

Therefore I have no boast but this; the blood of Jesus Christ

Who broke the curse of sin and death through Himself, sacrificed

For I, a master of excuse, who forgets easily

That I can do all I can do through Christ who strengthens me

© Janet Martin

Gal.2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, 

but Christ lives in me. 

The life I now live in the body, 

I live by faith in the Son of God, 

who loved me and gave himself for me.

Phil.4:13

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Rom.7:24-25

O wretched man that I am! 

Who will deliver me from this body of death? 

 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Like Sea-song...

 

Time rushes through heart doors and rolls like sea-song into memories

It roars through dreams where nothing seems to faze the toll it takes with ease

It grins and thins blue-sky July like pigment on a painter’s tray

While a collection of impressions, like blown bubbles, wafts away

And draws us nearer to that place we all approach with every breath

The grace of where we are is scarred with mementos of life and death

Magnificence of innocence soon stripped of luster of first leaf

How soon we start to recognize the bloom of every bud is brief

Ah, today does not bat an eye as it marches through you and me

Turning the future into past, cast in ethereal imagery

As, what was once so riveting and all-encompassing becomes

A trail of seasons scattered like flower petals and cookie crumbs

Where, while time rushes through us like sea-song that rolls across the shore

The older that we get we pause to hear its music more and more

© Janet Martin

Someday, Dearly Beloved

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent scrubbing and painting

the house our son bought and moved into on Saturday.

At first, the key he gave me, no matter how hard I tried did not work.

I was on my way back home when he called again and said, 'try the back door.

It's got to work in one of the doors!!'

 It did. In the back door...the first time I tried for some reason it didn't.

Then, finally the deadbolt gave way and I stepped over the threshold...

into his house. ..

where the first order of business was to cover the pinky-red paint in the kitchen! 

The key episode evoked a picture 

of a deadbolt in all of us 

that with our last breath will release

as we step through a door,

 over a threshold...

into eternity!

Our first 'order of business' will be meeting our Creator 

who loved us so much He gave His only begotten Son

to pay our way into Heaven, to break sin's curse through

His death and resurrection!

Salvation through Jesus is the only key that will unlock Heaven's Door!

Do you believe this?

Are you ready if the inner deadbolt releases today?

John 10:1-10

Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, 

I am the door of the sheep. 

8 All who ever came [a]before Me are thieves and robbers,

 but the sheep did not hear them. 

9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, 

and will go in and out and find pasture.

10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.

 I have come that they may have life, 

and that they may have it more abundantly.

***

Someday, dearly beloved, the chimes of Time will cease

Its clime of hope and grace will fall like a leaf from a tree

The deadbolt that holds earth’s exodus at bay will release

As the soul sheds its cloak of dust for all eternity

What serious business this; the trek from here to There

What sacred undertaking is the living of today

Far more than what we eat and where we go and what we wear

But rather who we fear and worship, honour and obey

Someday, dearly beloved, the fight of faith will end

And nothing will take precedence before the throne of He

Who on the clouds of heaven in great glory will descend

And the whole world will mourn as we behold His majesty

No shadow of a doubt survives His countenance

The Word from the beginning, through whom everything was made

Will still the chimes of Time; only the gift salvation grants

Will conquer death and hell; eternal life is no charade

What serious business this; the choosing of our Lord/lord

Heaven or hell, no in-between, hangs in the balance, oh

Someday, dearly beloved, Choice will receive its just reward

Of either everlasting joy or everlasting woe

Someday, dearly beloved, Today will disappear

  And all that matters then are riches money cannot buy 

The wealth of this world, fickle, like the trickle of a tear 

 Just things that thieves break in and steal, and greed's slaves justify 

Someday, dearly beloved, the chimes of Time will cease

Its clime of hope and grace will fall like a leaf from a tree

The deadbolt that held earth’s exodus at bay will release

As the soul sheds its cloak of dust for all eternity

© Janet Martin