My Prayer-book

My prayer book is the Bible, oh,

A rose, or wind-tossed trees

My prayer book is the trial’s blow

Sent to bend stubborn knees

My prayer book is a daughter, far
away or at my side
A son grown taller than his father
Rife with dreamer's pride

My prayer book is my mother, ah
For oft her head was bowed
As she surrendered to the law
Of what God's love allowed

My prayer book is the Vast Unknown

It teaches me to trust

While laughter, longing, grin and groan

Tunes its Cardinal Must

My prayer book is a baby-child

Innocence watching me

My prayer book is ‘maybes’ run wild

That thwart what I can see

My prayer book is the love I hold

The love I wish I had

The love that jars me with its gold

And weights me with its lead

My prayer book is the dark of night

Silence can wail with fear

My prayer book is the Morning Light

Kind proof that God is near

My prayer book is soft, whisper-bound
A Tome of death and birth
While thought turns pages without sound
God moves heaven and earth

© Janet Martin

May This Day...

May this day be like a highway

Leading to the sick and poor

Rather than a feckless my-way

Filled with lust for more and more

May this day be like a garden

Where we tend the tender root

Before harvest proves the hidden

Bent with visage of full fruit

May this day be like a chapel

Wall of wind and roof of sky

May we be a humble people

Singing songs to God on high

May this day be like a window

Facing north, south, east and west

Framing, in the wake of it, oh

By the grace of God, our best

May this day be like a front line

Where we war for Heaven’s gain

Knowing, though sight veils sweet Zion

Our fight is not in vain

May this day be like an altar

Where we burn idols of stone

As we make the heart a Psalter

Of worship to God alone

© Janet Martin

For Faithful Mercy Praise

 Psalm 40:5
Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, 

And Your thoughts toward us; 

There is none to compare with You. 

If I would declare and speak of them, 

They would be too numerous to count.

 ...at first Grandson was not at all sure about the 'playpen' Grandma plunked him into while we finished blanching beans for his mommy's freezer...

But, after a moment or two of contemplating he seemed quite satisfied!(sorry the grin-shot blurred:(

oops, I forgot! This post was inspired by the breathy wisps of lavender birthing new day;-)

Benevolence of mercy’s constancy

Trails in a veil of lavender and pink

It drapes its ether shroud across earth’s lea

And draws our waking gaze to eastward brink

As we consider He whose might and grace

Are justice and redemption intertwined

He guards and quakes the cage where human race

Is privy to wonders, each God-designed

Whether of branch etched stark against near dark

Or buoyant with breeze-breathy seraphim

Whether of rivers carved into the rock

Or pretty petal-plumes detailed by Him

Nothing of human heart can fully hold

The magnitude of splendor such as this

The hemline of a robe purple and gold

Falls tender, from a star-enflamed abyss

To touch the eye with wild pleasure, ah, we

Will never tire of God’s handiwork

Time’s rampart groans with quiet majesty

Where angels tread and trembling demons lurk

We are engulfed, in spite of evil’s host

With Mercy’s unequivocal defense

For rebels This bestowed Love’s uttermost

And always supersedes man’s arrogance 

Or else we could not leap for humble joy

Doomed by the awful end that we deserve

How bittersweet Creation’s grand decoy

Would be; but Mercy tunes this earthy verve

Then, when ‘neath leaf-thatched blue we idly pause

To revel in a pool of cool respite

Pray, we lift high a heart of praise because

We walk in Mercy’s everlasting sight

For He does not forget this fretting clan

Who has nothing to boast save utter need

And its dependence on a Higher Hand

From whence Love’s floods of mercy intercede

He flowers careworn hours; scrawls a brook

Beneath half-moon pinned to twilight’s lapel

Mercy metes morning; everywhere we look

It shouts, thus man may whisper ‘it is well’

...and walk with confidence of heart and mind

Without need to cower in guilt, afraid

Of harsh tongue-lashings; God's mercy is kind

To we, fearfully, wonderfully made

Thus, forfeit not true hope for lawless gain

Then put away the old man for the new

The evidence of  Mercy makes it plain

Great God of love is God of judgement too

© Janet Martin

 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, 

I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14

 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 

For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. 

Romans 1:18-20 

 

Click on this link to the song below for a worthwhile read entitled Worship or Light Esteem

Waning Melody

 

 

Wand wafts, lofty wind-chimes whisper

Strum a slow sun-shadow dance

Soft upon the yellow summer

Fronds fall prey to Thought-Rembrandts

Like a waterfall of flowers

Clover, sage So Long Songs lilt

Tumbling, noiseless from bloom bowers

To a hall of childhood spilt 

Paper airplanes, oak-leaf sailboats

Splay; a winsome interlude

Ere they fade, mosaic eighth-notes

On a page of Past subdued

Come, before the ruddy rushes

Fling their silk coats to the air

And the Thing we cradle pushes

Off into the Blue Somewhere

We are too polite to murmur

Tug of warring heart and mind

Lures us where the yellow summer

Plays on days soon left behind  

Ah, methinks I hear a cricket

Prelude to a symphony

Wafting in the lofty thicket

Of a waning melody

© Janet Martin