Thursday Thoughts on Grudges

Holding on to grudges

Elongates grief and bitterness

Letting them go shrinks old wounds

And heals, by time’s caress

Holding on to grudges

Hurts our children

As we deny them the example

Of forgiveness

Holding on to grudges

Is like clinging to a briar-tree

There is no relief from the pain

Holding on to grudges

Robs you of the freedom

To reach out to others

Holding on to grudges

Is energy and opportunity wasted

Holding on to grudges is like drinking poison.

You kill joy

Holding on to grudges

Never works to our good

For we cannot hold a grudge

And still love as we should

If you insist on holding a grudge

Be sure you know the deal

As bitterness can bleed the life from you

And only forgiveness can heal

Grudges are often amplified misunderstandings

Grudges are the fruit of miscommunication

Grudges grow if clung to and die if released

Life is short. Don’t waste it nurturing weeds

A grudge protected and preserved drops dark and evil seeds

Holding on to grudges
depletes us of strength to let go

Holding on to grudges strengthens
our weaknesses

Holding on to grudges
Drains us of
love
thanksgiving
hope
joy
patience
peace

Holding on to grudges
fills us
with everything
contrary to
Love

© Janet Martin

Immaculate Intercession

Sometimes it seems that I do not know how I ought to pray

The words are sealed within my thought; I don’t know what to say

But there is nothing hid from God; He knows our creature needs

He hears our deep unspoken thought and gently intercedes

My praise, my pleas, my tears, my fears, in deep emotions swell

Disappointment and dismay in desperate oceans well

Tonight there are no words to give this world of thought release

But suddenly I know He heard; I feel Him whisper ‘Peace’

© Janet Martin

Are We Ready?

Mary, your poem inspired these thoughts immediately as I pondered your words. There is no escaping physical death!

If God should knock upon the door of planet earth tonight

And hand each one of us a robe of lucent, deathly white

And if, before we had a moment to accept it or decline

Our feet were lifted from this sod to elements divine

Would we be ready?

If He should require from our breath but this; our living soul

As dust-wrought limbs succumb to death; and timeless Fathoms roll

If He should reach to take our hands within His nail-scarred own

And draw us from our trembling stance to meet Him at His throne

Would we be ready?

If we looked up to see upon the clouds, the Son of Man

If we lay down to wake in portals far beyond earth’s span

If tonight we heard a knock and opened our cottage door

To see Him standing there to lift us from this stricken shore

Would we be ready?

Time and life; two awesome gifts but each with numbered day

Grace and love; two awesome truths that never fade away

Jesus Christ: one awesome God forever with no end

You and I, one life, one death; will we be ready, friend?

Are we ready?

© Janet Martin

Time's Swift Ride...a Sonnet

 Image Source: http://www.friesianheritage.com/

The window to the night is open wide

The earth; a silver chariot bathed in mist

I cannot sleep; thought beckons me to ride

An invitation I cannot resist

The moonlight bleeds a mellow, yellow glow

Before it slips into the onyx deep

A mystic vault where time and eons flow

In rivers formed by moments as they weep

And from its shores the stirring of a breeze

Ruffles June’s verdant maple canopies

Time, like an eager, dancing, prancing stead

Urges us on against our meager will

And though we beckon, barter, beg and plead

It rushes, even while the night is still

And every azure gasp of summer’s noon

Each pulse as pain and pleasure interlace

And every bursting bud of mortal June

Will flow into this vault of ethereal space

And all that was today will be no more

History seals the gates to its vast shore

Once, on a younger day its rush was sweet

We leapt upon this phantom stallion’s back

But now the bounding, pounding of his feet

Have trampled far too soon life’s beaten track

The window to the night is open wide

I catch the tempo of a languid tone

Akin to echoes on a mountain-side

Of mother calling all her children home

And to this plaintive call I must reply

For life is small beneath Time’s little sky

© Janet Martin

 

I Wanna Live- Glen Campbell

Oh, What Then?

We observe in astonishment

Man’s newest accomplishment

And wonder what will follow

Scientists place

Their cameras in space

As we glimpse infinity’s hollow

Medicine keeps the dying alive

But no matter how we study and strive

We cannot touch the order

Of God-ordained things

Or alter the courses

His authority brings

Mornings will ever succeed the night

Two wrongs will never make a right

We all get older with each passing hour

And none are exempt from His grace or His power

No one can order the rain from the sky

There is no invention so we will not die

We cannot shuffle seasons in nature or man

Or rearrange one molecule of His plan

For He IS God, we are merely men

We are born, we die; and oh, what then?

Perhaps we ought to take a closer look

At His Word and teaching of His Book

For nothing will happen that He has not told

His truths are unfolding since centuries of old

Knowledge is admiral; His gift to men

But if we ignore the Giver; oh, what then?

  

© Janet Martin

Outer space images fill me with utter wonderment and awe!

How GREAT is our God.

He has given men the knowledge to glimpse infinity, but we CANNOT add one jot to TIME!

Time is a wee capsule...what then?

Oh, that's right! Eternity.

But His Book shows us the way to Him eternally. He did not leave us as sheep without a Shepherd for He IS love.

Just as I Am- B.J. Thomas

How in this World are Yours?

We cannot add moments to moments

No matter how wildly we rush

Life is a tick by tock delving

Before vast eternity’s hush

If we could unclench today’s portion

What would we find in its grip?

Would it be a hallowed awareness

Of transient moments that slip?

God, teach me how to live fully

Not burdened by moments unmet

Lest I miss the present unfolding

And thus fill its hold with regret

...and stir in me flames of passion

Not roused  by the gathering of things

But the gathering of beautiful moments

That pure, purposed living brings

Granules of sand form the desert

Drops form the depths of the sea

And moments form hours then lifetimes

Dissolved in eternity

Life is a grace-lent experience

A moment by moment lease

Do we choose a frenzied endurance

Or moment by moment peace?

© Janet Martin

The Hand of Experience

Experience wields a painful rod

It frustrates foolish notion

Training its students tirelessly

In spite of frayed emotion

Experience wields a patient scepter

No student is too old

To learn the lessons in this classroom

Where unbidden, we’re enrolled

Experience wields a wise baton

For in each vexing stumble

It snuffs our aptness for conceit

And helps to keep us humble

© Janet Martin

His Passion

Passion; it formed the universe

Dividing Day and Night

It clothed the earth in miracles

And filled the dark with light

It placed in Eden’s garden

A woman and a man

And in the passion of their greed

Man’s greatest need began

Passion; it burns in mortal loins

In searing, selfish lust

It feeds the greed of sinful seed

And taints the wanton dust

Ten thousand-thousand altars built

Ten thousand-thousand flames

Could not redeem our wretched guilt

Or wash away our shame

Passion; it burned in Holy Wrath

And filled God’s heart with grief

To see the nations of the earth

Blinded in unbelief

It tore through Heaven’s glory

A fire born of Love

Compelling Him to leave the throne

His Passion’s depth to prove

Passion; it clothed I AM in flesh

To walk a skull-strewn path

While we drove nails through holy limbs

He prayed on our behalf

Passion; it bled from guiltless wounds

It poured in agony

To save mankind from death and hell

He died to set us free

Oh can we ever comprehend

A Passion such as this

That He should cover our sin

In Holy Righteousness

Passion; it fills the law of grace

Extending Time’s last plea

Passion; it saves the human race

From hell’s eternity

Janet Martin

Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Burning Passion