What Then?

Tampa Bay Lightning (2-0-0)

6

Montreal Canadiens (0-2-0)

2

I'm married to a lifelong Hab (Montreal Canadiens) fan...I will say no more;-) 

We love watching sports and cheering on our favorite teams/players! But...

When all the teams we’ve cheered for

And all our dreams are done

When fortune's gleaming moment-lore

Fades like mist in the sun

…when all the paths we’ve taken

With all the care we’ve borne

Dissolves as we awaken

In God’s eternal morn

…when trial-error fumbling

Mutely disintegrates

Like paper castles crumbling

Beneath Time’s shutting gates

…when hope and heartache’s groaning

And faith and fear’s Object

Appears before eyes closing

To what none can reject

…when we lay down to rise up

To never sleep again

When Death cries to us, ‘Time’s up’

Pray tell me, love, what then?

© Janet Martin

Farmer or Gardener's Planting Prayer

 

I was digging up around the rhubarb just now, enjoying the hum of tractors on the land, all around...some cultivating, some hauling manure and some planting. Working the earth draws us near the heart of God, don't you agree?

 Whether literally or metaphorically, it's planting time!

Lord, help me do my best to tend

The plot you’ve loaned to me

Then trust You for the dividend

Of harvest that will be

Lord, stir in me a humble worth

As spring-birth stirs the sod

For as I till and plant the earth

I touch Your hand, oh God

Lord, let me never then forget

Within life’s rain and sun

That you are faithful to beget

What now has just begun

© Janet Martin

 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Phil. 1:6 

Breakthrough

An air of excitement, a thrill of something intangible rides the waking breeze

When spring breaks through the seal of bud and mud, to frill earth's hills and trees

The bloom breaks through the bud

The light breaks through the dark

The shoot breaks through the gloomy mud

To gild the brooding bark

Green breaks through shrouds of brown

Green breaks through cloven clutch

To clothe earth in a teeming gown

Beneath the Weaver’s touch

Spring breaks through poised delight

Like warmth breaking through cold

Like morning breaking through the night

In madrigals of gold

© Janet Martin

Holy Accountant

God, life's Giver stokes the barren limb...

Not the dollars in our coffers

Nor the boast of human flesh

Not the birthdays that we number

Or the acres we possess

But God counts the tears of sorrow

And the prayers secretly prayed

He tallies our sacrifices

For the price that once He paid

Not the number of our holdings

That the Arm of Lending grants

Far dearer to God the offering

Of faithful obedience

...far dearer the feet that struggle

In shoes frayed by second miles

And the hands, calloused with labor

To induce another's smiles

Not the Things that weight our fingers

Nor the strings affixed to sod

But each humble heart of worship

These are counted by our God

© Janet Martin

 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Heb.14:12