Of Unfailing Love

Pray we do not put trust in these

Intimacies that men applaud

But ever let our full joy be

In salvation that comes from God

Evil will not triumph, oh no,

It cannot, does not know the One

Whose grace it is whereby we go

Through Jesus Christ, His only Son

Confusion vexes and destroys

Its noise of vaunt nothing can prove

Sing hallelujah and rejoice

In God and His unfailing love

© Janet Martin

  

I sent this song to my friend Diane this morning. 

Will you pray for her once more as she struggles with challenges that cancer brings with it?

While we're at it why don't we pray for everyone struggling with these challenges because God/ Yahweh knows who they are even if we don't. 

 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, 

the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love 

with those who love him and keep his commandments, 

to a thousand generations,

Deut.7:9

Forthwith of Days

Dawn bares the haste of Time’s ‘forthwith of days’

…sigh-stippled landscapes with skies intersect

Want, work and wonder their portions dissect

Keening our gaze to life’s quick-stricken ways

Nuance of circumstance, yesterday’s glance

Tethers our willfulness with naught but this;

Tick-by-tock offers and dust-to-dust kiss

Mirth and melancholy’s death-deigned romance

Music and monotone, laughter and groan

Dawn bares Time’s latest affairs made of these;

Moments doffed, petered into memories

Moments soft-metered into Steppingstone

Pragmatic, ecstatic, emphatic We

Weather the ‘Whethers’ of love’s highs and lows

What waits where dawn awakes, only God knows

We nurse Man’s Curse immersed in His mercy

© Janet Martin

 Ps.12

 Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;
    for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
² Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
    with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

³ May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
    the tongue that makes great boasts,
⁴ those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
    our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

⁵ “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
    I will now arise,” says the Lord;
    “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
⁶ The words of the Lord are pure words,
    like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
    purified seven times.

⁷ You, O Lord, will keep them;
    you will guard us from this generation forever.
⁸ On every side the wicked prowl,
    as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

Love's Souvenir

 (for all parents with loved ones moving out to return to school)

It is the color of August, bronze-burnished

It is the murmur of sky-high true blue

It is the whisper of hours relinquished

It is the longing in summer’s adieu

It is the almost touching of our fingers

It is the ache of a slow-breaking heart

It is the waft of soft echoes that linger

Where time dismantles its breath-taking art

It is the fading of flower-fringed fencerows

Petal-parts scattered on time’s avenue

It is a tug-of-heart flipside of hellos

It is love’s souvenir;  missing you

© Janet Martin

Melissa doesn't move until Sunday, 

but already I sense an immense missing-you ache...

The Thing That Counts

It’s not in the number of dollars we earn

Or in how much treasure we lay in store

The measure of pleasure in life’s return

Depends on Who we are doing it for

It’s not in whether skies are gray or blue

Or what this-or-that’s ultimatum will prove

The pleasure of all that we say and do

Depends, in the end, on its measure of love

How hollow the loveless laughter cold-rings

How shallow the self-aggrandizing toast

How lovely are life’s simple, common-place things

When love is the reason that matters most

© Janet Martin

Green Again...

The misty morning was motionless, save for one meandering cow...

 

When the ground is hard and dry, and the sky

Is hazy, a pallor that hovers aloft

We long for the green days to run their sigh

Under our feet like a carpet, soft

And then we are glad for the rain to drench

The lack-luster landscape and quench its thirst

As all that seemed lifeless is green again

After the rafters of heaven have burst

And blessings we never numbered before

Becomes something we are most thankful for

© Janet Martin

It's so nice to be able to walk across the soft, green lawn again where the ouch-ouch-ouch

of dry, brown  prickles used to be... 

What blessings have you re-noticed lately because

of the absence of it for a while. 

 What blessing do you re-value in your own life as you see another

learn to live without it, such as able body, able mind, the presence of a loved one, 

freedom, etc.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground;Isa.44:3

 Isaiah 55:1
"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.