Of Pride, People and Purpose

   

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To point my finger at another

Is not very smart

For I know that God is watching

And He sees my heart

Criticism has no merit

We are students, all

Shame on me as I inherit

After pride; a fall

We should share compassion, courage

Brothers, sisters, we

Created to help one another

And give God glory

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on Hope

When life’s load becomes
Too heavy to bear

Fold it between
Your fingers

In prayer

***

Today is only twenty-four hours

Then it is gone forever

Hope is an ageless, Timeless God

That no tick-tock can sever

***

Yea, though I walk through the valley

Of the shadow of death

There is One who goes before me

God of heaven and earth

His rod and staff, they comfort me

No evil will I fear

For no matter where life leads

I know that He is near

***

Hope is a thing we cannot see

To hope in gods of stone

Is to hope in futility

For God is Hope alone

We cannot see His face and yet

We sense Him, oh, so near

For God is Hope; hope is not dead

Until Time disappears

…and then, the hour of Hope’s reward

For as this life grows dim

All who have trusted in the Lord

Will ever be with Him

***

Rock of ages cleft for me

Hope for all humanity

Never can a storm or gale

Crush love’s Hope that cannot fail

***

Oh, sweet, sweet hour of prayer

Hope is restored therein

For God beholds each hurt we bear

And as we cry to Him

He sends His whisper; we release

Our longing in His arms of peace

***

Just as I am; God You love me

Forgiven, justified

Just as I am; how I love Thee

Hope born as Your Son died

***

What a Friend we have in Jesus

How He longs to befriend all

Hope is found in His forgiveness

And lost if we scorn His call

***

Man of sorrows, what a Name

Hope of sinners bore our blame

Dare we yet choose our guilt

In place of Love’s offering spilt?

***

Oh God our help in ages past

Our hope for years to come

There is no other name on earth

That draws the sinner Home

***

ABC’s of Hope Is…

Abiding

Blood-bought

Calvary

Divine

Eternal

Faithful

God

Heaven

Invisible

Jesus

Knowing

Life

Might

Nurturing

Omnipotent

Peace

Quiet

Redemption

Security/Salvation

Trusting

Undefeatable

Victory

Worship

X-cellent

Yahweh

Zeal

***

Without hope…we die

***

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isa. 40:31

Keeper of Time's Clock

 Image is a page from Psalms: chapters 138 &139

Ah, Keeper of Time’s sun and sorrow clock

You plan and tend to each, our numbered days

The wise man trusts You, Keeper, as he walks

With prayer-shod feet into Vast Unknown’s haze

We cannot clench within our keep the hour

Vainly we grasp to resurrect its dead

But Thou, oh hand of loving, holy power

Will not forsake us in its mile of dread

Ah, Keeper of Time’s fear and faith-wrought fight

Its filigree falls beyond our control

Yet nothing befalls man beyond Your sight

And with this promise we our fear console

Into Your hands, oh Keeper of Time’s clock

We commit all that we can never know

And as we yield to Thee each step we walk  

We cling to peace that only You bestow

© Janet Martin

As I write this my dad is having by-pass surgery so I am in an attitude of continuous prayer that God will guide the surgeon’s hands…

There are ten kids in my family so we set up a visiting schedule just so we don’t all come at once; yet, I know we are all there with him in prayer!

Writer to Her Muse

How can I forget you?

Ah love, each time I try

You vex me just beyond my reach

A phantom butterfly

How casually you slip

Twixt touch and guarded thought

Compelling me with luring lines

To revel in your jot

...so you and I thus dance

A sensual, soulful trip

As resistance and hunger jive

Twixt thought and finger-tip

...and if I beg you go

I feel like I might die

Yet if you stay I’ll ever chase

You; phantom butter-fly

Then you and I must find

A way to synchronize

You, half-rebelicious, kind

And me, your eager prize

I cannot forget you

Darling finagling rue

To chastise you within a poem

Is all that I can do

© Janet~

Heirs of Tomorrow

Yes, sometimes I forget

…it isn’t hard to do

And choose toil’s little odds and ends

Stealing time spent with you

How swift each season flies

A soft and subtle reach

Teasing the baby from our arms

While we hug, hold and teach

Once upon yesterday

We were children, carefree

And never gave a second thought

To love’s wise legacy

The tide that carried us

Still rushes ‘cross the wild

Now we leave in its wide-flung wake

Our footprints for a child

Here run tomorrow’s heirs

To everything we weave

We ought to touch with tender care

The moments in Time’s sieve

A child, but not for long

Time’s keen deliverance

Will leave those things we made for them

As their inheritance

© Janet Martin

Before supper I picked up fresh eggs at a local farm. A little boy was hammering two pieces of scrap wood together in the shed where they keep the eggs. When I asked him what he is making he told me 'a sled’ and without pausing he got up, pinched his creation in a vice-grip and began sawing the end with a small hand-saw. Next I asked him what he is going to use for the part to sit on, and again without pausing in his ‘work’ he replied, ‘oh, I don’t know yet’, his cheeks rosy from cold and exertion and his eyes gold with dream-dust.

What are we leaving these heirs of tomorrow?

…these precious, precious heirs!

'Once-Had-Beens'

   

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Someday life’s little 'bursts of bad'

And vexing twists that drive us mad

Will be a blip upon time’s screen

And nothing more than ‘once-had-been’

These galling interviews with woe

Life's roller-coaster high and low

Are brief eighth-notes of in-between

What will be, is, then ‘once-had-been’

Nothing alights never to leave

And joy waits past this thing we grieve

Beyond Time’s winter wafts spring-green

While now we shape its ‘once-had-been’

Thus within our bosoms we

Cling to this gladsome guarantee

‘This too shall pass’; clocks intervene

Nudging each day to ‘once-had-been’

God, help us not to lose our way

But teach us how to live each day

Committed to its moment-mien

Before it falls to ‘once-had-been’

© Janet Martin

My friend is having a ‘when it rains it pours’ stage in their family. We tried looking on the bright side by remembering eventually this time will be a little blip in their lives of what once had been...so we went skiing with her little boy (the one I baby-sit;), had an out-door picnic, albeit a shivery one and tried to imagine everything warm and green instead of cold and white!

If We Believe

If we believe then this life’s moments plead

With passion, purpose, peace and holy fire

The boastings of this world are things of greed

Belief transcends its covetous desire

It lifts our eyes beyond the hills of grief  

As we behold a hope not formed with hand

And hidden from the heart of unbelief

For sight alone can never understand

The meaning of it all; life’s what and why

Is not revealed in flesh but when we die

Beware then lest some weaker ploy deceive

And we forget the Who which we believe

Ah, who of us can bid the sun to shine,

Or probe the deep to force a drop of rain?

Our every boast is hinged on Love Divine

To deny Him is to live each day in vain

But if we seek to trust Him we will find

Hope is not baseless serendipity

But heaven’s well-spring feeding heart and mind

As faith perceives the veiled with clarity

For then it is enough to simply know

Not by ourselves, but grace of God we go

Futile to weep and wildly shake the fist

At He who sends each morning mercy-kissed

Oh, what is man that God remembers us?

We, who hunger for carnal bread and meat,

Yet it pleased Him to send His Son Jesus

Suff’ring even to death, death to defeat

For earth could not contain His holiness

Nor could hatred impose its sorry seal

Love rose victorious and glorious

Dare we ignore its heavenly appeal?

‘Come unto me’, ‘no one will I cast out’

Will we believe or blindly cling to doubt?

Whoever comes to Him He will receive

And emptiness is filled if we believe

© Janet Martin

So many things spawned this poem…a verse I read yesterday, watching the full movie Ben Hur, realizing how easy it is to fixate on what we see instead of what we know…

Meeting-hour

I tried to imagine you

The way you used to be

But it seems you have disappeared

Beneath Time’s tempest sea

I know that we will meet again

To lean against the gate

To watch the paling deep of dark

And dawn amalgamate

The budded bloom is primed to fill

And thrill our meeting-ground

How is it that the hours rush

And spill without a sound?

…long, long it seems we bear and bide

Time’s surging under-tow

To touch those places that we love

And lost so long ago

The no return of season-tides

And tempests test the heart

Sweet, sweeter is love’s meeting-hour

When we have been apart

© Janet Martin

When I look at the winter-locked garden I try to recall the scent of freshly-turned soil, buds barely breaking, dew at dawn...it sort of feels like a dream!