Heart Smith

He works with hearts as hard as steel

And hearts as cold as stone

And hearts that don’t think He is real

And feel sad and alone

He works with hands nail-scarred and kind

With love that will not cease

He turns the heart of rebel pride

Into a Master Peace

© Janet Martin

To We Of Numbered Days

Where doubt releases demons

And despair is like a noose

Where unbelief is chief of sin

And faith seems but a ruse

Where knowledge leaves a gaping void

In quests of greater good

And life feels like a lonesome road

Of love misunderstood

When all the answers in the world

Breed questions undeterred

Then we need to get on our knees

And trust God’s faithful Word

When in our search for gladness, oh,

When in our search for peace

In this world rife with madness’ woe

(…the price of Unbelief)

When seeking, but not finding, or

When hoping without hope

When looking but not seeing more

Than dark through which we grope

When confusion strips passion

For life’s purpose pure and sure

The God of all salvation waits

To save, comfort, secure

When what we find is futile

Like vain chasing of the wind

When what binds us bleeds laughter dry

In corridors of skin

When worth of word and labor seems

To waste upon the street

And everywhere we turn our dreams

Are undone in defeat

When we have lost our appetite

For Truth that none can prove

We need to lay aside our pride

And trust God’s faithful love

…and as we let go of our will

His pow’r will intercede

For nothing in this world can fill

The soul’s undying need

Nothing will grant relief from grief

Or bring peace, hope or joy

Until Surrender stirs Belief

In what none can destroy

The Lord’s myriad mercies pour

Without number or law

And as we glimpse His gift of grace

He fills the heart with awe

God, full of pity loves us

Patient, kind and without blame

Though heathen mock His promises

They abide, all the same

His grace bids judgment tarry

For a world confused and lost

Born with a curse we carry

Until broken at the cross

Then, when the blood of Jesus

Washes clean the heart of sin

Redemption’s hope releases us

To precious peace within

© Janet Martin

 Immediately the boy's father cried out, "I do believe; help my unbelief!"

Mark 9:24

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Matt 19:26

 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

John 1:12

When In The Thick of Push and Shove

'End of August' always seems to have a lonely ring to it and if offered

I'd do 'June-July-August' all over again...

of course, there are always days we would not want to repeat so the order of day-to-day is perfect...always new. 

Still, why does it keep surprising us so, as we tend to its urgent due?

If we are busy life is beautiful...pity the one with idle mind and hands, born for trouble!

When in the thick of push and shove

Of life and love’s incumbent dues

While flower-gardens spill profuse

Arrangements from earth’s treasure-trove

...and Summer, like time’s finest gown

Begins to fray along the edge

Where stray threads silver sun-kissed sedge

And grained gold drains from nature’s crown

…when in the thick of hold and scold

As arms enfold what none can stay

While rhetoric of day-to-day

Is always turning new to old

We turn with startled my, oh my

To wonder when its haste is spent

Where all the days of summer went

While we were tending its good-bye

© Janet Martin

Tribute to Love

Happy 23rd Birthday, dear, beautiful daughter Melissa (with nephew Brantley)

We change and thus love changes growing ever meeker and deeper.

And just as it was when you were a baby, 

...love keeps astonishing us with awesome wonder.

We love you.

May God bless your journey!

Love keeps no polite distance

Though miles may hinder touch

As force of time’s insistence

Roars heedless through our clutch

The people who we are, dear

Must learn to hold-let-go

But love is never far, dear

It weathers ebb and flow

It is God’s wooing wonder

No heart and soul intact

Love's fulfillment and hunger

Poem cannot exact

How does one pen the yen, dear?

That bleeds as years unfold

And vexes travel-plans, dear

On roads to growing old

...they wind through hill and valley

 To leave behind meek awe

Love keeps no vengeful tally

Of wrong-doing or flaw

 

Its earnest exhortation

To hope and pray and trust

Is God’s kind invitation

To cheer our dust-to-dust

How wise and true this prescript

For as years coalesce

Love teaches us its secret

To humble happiness

Then, as Time’s nonresistance

Rearranges the view

Love keeps no polite distance

But runs us through and through

© Janet Martin   

Anchor

Want’s taunts can haunt the heart and mind

With fantasies touch cannot find

It torment man's terrestrial bark

And even day is night-like, dark

Contentment; healer of want’s ache

Can calm want’s wind and storm-tossed lake

It sets at ease desires that bind

And frees the wrought and captive mind

Want’s base and howling vertigo

Raids thought to find hope for its woe

There is but one redemptive cure

The love of God, faithful and sure

God is gracious to those who heed

His precepts; He fulfills true need

And stills want’s wearying despair

With mercy’s everlasting care

© Janet

O taste and see that the LORD is good;

 How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 

 Psalm 34:8

 Good and upright is the Lord;

therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

He guides the humble in what is right

and teaches them his way.

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful

toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.

For the sake of your name, Lord,

forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

Psalm 25:8-11