Of Seasons and Doorways

Season-kaleidoscopes turn transient tides

Where we compose retrospect’s raw refrain

Rubric of laughter abruptly collides

With the appointments of sorrow and pain

Living and loving and learning we go

Over Time’s foot-hills, mountains, vales and plains

Sunshine and shadow in multi-shades flow

As seasons spiral One Constant remains

Mercy and grace in unfathomed purport

Gently embrace and succor and support

We bear witness with baffled acumen

Life’s whys and wherefores our intellect mutes

Gently the summertime is gathered again

Hallowed harvest as choice yields its fruits

We cannot pause or dissuade Death’s advent

Futile the babble of faithless disputes

Soft breath by half-breath our dust-mottled tent

Suffers the training of heaven’s recruits

As we gaze up to faith’s covenant-goal

Our flesh the brief cup of Immortal Soul

Can we efface winter, spring, summer, fall?

Who can refute Time’s encompassing will?

Then, who can hide when the Father will call?

Who dares refuse what Love came to fulfill?

Earth wears the colors of each season-shawl

We tread its heaven-cradled countenance

This is the stairway to Love’s All-in-all

And time, but the road to deliverance

Where now seasons veil what we cannot see

A doorway leading to eternity

Janet~

Ending and cutting many beans is an opportunity to think:)

What Are We Living For?

  

Image Source

A baby cries; somebody dies

Somewhere a son goes off to war

Time ebbs and flows in highs and lows

Tell me, what are we living for?

Snow angels, roses, butterflies

Sickness and sorrow, anguish, pain

A son for which a mother cries

Because he won’t come home again

Laughter and song fade in mid-air

Love, loss and longing mingle wild

We see a young girl with no hair

And innocence torn from a child

The brush falls from a painter’s hand

Oh Lord, our God, we weep and call

By faith we press against the wind

Toward the One who sees it all

As babies die and loved ones cry

The clay turns in the Potter's love

Shaping us to the Reason why

As we press to His arms above

© Janet Martin

 So much pain and sorrow in this world; all would be hopeless without Jesus.

 John 16:33 - These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Of History and Footprints~

 By dusk the day's traces were washed from the beach...

They come and then they go

Like footprints in the sand or snow

But still they guide us faithfully

By what we learn through history

To stop our eyes and ears

Against life’s past or future fears

Is to repeat oft, hopelessly

Those lessons taught in history

Soon Time will wash away

The visible steps of today

Yet, we are wise to pause and see

Their lessons sealed in history

© Janet Martin

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

Just read Heb. 11. Feeling discouraged? What great testimonies of faith and endurance we are reminded of in this chapter!

 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Heb. 12:1

Blessed Assurance 
 words by Fanny J. Crosby

Life

The days of wheat and corn adorn

The haze of early August morn

In praises, ere its sheaf is shorn

By Time’s swift, willing hands

The farmer gleans its harvest-gold

And summer leans to autumn’s hold

While moment-skeins unfold, unfold

A subtle, steady strand

The sun and moon their courses tread

The azure noon succumbs to red

As gentle vesper-tunes embed

This day into the past

The flower grins then falls away

The sinner sins but then we pray

And grace begins another day

Toward our ever-last

The scroll on which our past is writ

A toll of living’s wit and grit

Cannot contain the whole of it

A greater Day a-waits

Man’s life is like a field of grass

This strife is but the darkened glass

Through which the scythe of grief must pass

Leading to Heaven’s gates

© Janet Martin

Of Waves and Second Chances

No spent waves tune morning’s gladness

From the Hand of all things new

Comes a morning drenched with mercy

Sweet with kiss of heaven’s dew

Hope expands beneath the tresses

Where, since Eden’s paradise

Light, with ever-faithful graces

Rends the dark with morning skies

Here we laugh and weep and wonder

Dare to dream the dreaming dream

While the bloom falls from the poppy

Scarlet whispers on life’s stream

Still, we press toward a portal

Past the lintel of the sky

Where mortal becomes immortal

In the twinkling of an eye

We are not adrift on oceans

Of spent waves and happenstance

Morning rends the dark with dawning

And the gift of second chance

© Janet Martin

The other day I read a quote that has stayed stuck in my mind…It is not too late to become who you dreamed you would be.

Press on, my friends. God’s grace is new every morning.

Also, please let us pray for those suffering in Egypt. Prayer changes things!

  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,  not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph. 2: 4-10

Of Memories

Tomorrow, today will be a memory. Let's make it a good one!

We cherish our own, each precious and dear

Be they ever so humble how we hold them near

Echoes of living where only thought sees

This is the treasure of memories

Pictures of spring where carefree children dance

Pictures of summer, roses and romance

Pictures of autumn; stunning middle-age

Before winter’s silver-swift turning of page

Softly the sifting of sands coalesce

Brimming with love’s bittersweet tenderness

Oh, how the moment at hand quickly flees

Joining our collage of memories

Nothing on earth can their measure replace

These are love’s offerings of trial and grace

Picture by picture fills thought’s galleries

Time-tempered walk-way of life-memories

© Janet Martin

Mother of the Bride

Image Source

Oh, do not look too closely

How her filament of youth

Has drifted to the pastures

Where its prey denies that truth

And do not look too closely

Lest her smile of brave disguise

Tells of sorrow in her gladness

As you look into her eyes

Oh, do not look too deeply

She is strong but not too much

You would be her sure undoing

Troubadour of tender touch

Oh, and do not whisper softly

Joy and grief align, you know

As she recalls another bride

A few swift years ago

Oh, do not look too closely

Joy and mourning coalesce

But she wears its meek adorning

With a smile of happiness

For she too was once a dreamer

Now an ocean breaks inside

As they turn to see her daughter

To the tune ‘here comes the bride’

© Janet Martin

Beginning that mental preparation:) 

August Poem

Heaven on earth is Augusts’ afternoon

Of cricket seraphim; sun-flower swoon

Of parched meadows primed for the draught of dusk-dew

Of harvest sprawled gold beneath dust-denim blue

August is heaven spilled gently to earth

Where hollows are brimming with wild-flower mirth

Where drifts our care; silver flecks in the sun

We count summer’s blessing slowly, one by one

August is heaven in rippling sweet-heat

Cajoling the highways and tickling bare feet

It graces the garden where mother and child

Gather the harvest as memories grow wild

August requiem, you murmur in the stream

You sigh in the willow and cry in my dream

I could not measure your peach-pungent worth

Beautiful pleasure of heaven on earth

© Janet Martin