Broken Strings...

I prayed for my daughter in TO this morning 

but often I am tongue-tied in knowing exactly how to pray...

Yet overcome with awe that we may boldly approach the throne of grace...

 In the morning I like to read a poem or two...this morning I laughed out loud at how perfect and timely the poems were on the first page I opened the book to...

(Alfred Lord Tennyson was the first poet I fell in school-girl love with
when I read his poem The Brook )

 This one required a few reads to let the depth of the lines sink in...

For what we ought to pray, oh Lord

We often humbly guess

Your Higher Way vexes the chord

That tunes our happiness

We, pioneers of skin and bones

Oft know not where to start

You press your ear against our groans

And hear our heart of hearts

….and all those thing we do not tell

Your kind discretion knows

You see beneath breath's fragile shell

Where want and need oppose

So when we pray, Lord, as we raise

Our praise and agony

Gather these broken strings and frays

Into a melody

...and turn our doubt to humble trust

Transfix our Surety

Beyond this mist of dust-to-dust

To where no prayer will be

© Janet Martin

A promise to those who take refuge in the Lord, not idols.

When you cry out for help,
    let your collection of idols save you!
The wind will carry all of them off,
    a mere breath will blow them away.
But whoever takes refuge in me
    will inherit the land
    and possess my holy mountain.”

Isa.57:13

Dear God, how oft the thing that draws us to You is nothing we would ever choose! 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isa. 55:8-11

I've posted this song many times because I love it...

Don't You Dare Be Far Too Happy

 This is today's weather ...above freezing!

Then I checked the forecast and it seemed to exult in warning "don't you dare be far too happy!"

Don’t you dare be far too happy

Sullen naysayer sighs

And holds up doom-and-gloom’s forecast

Beneath sun-smiling skies

Don’t you be too light of heart, love

The darksome cynic warns

And misses the song of the lark

Because he fears the storms

Don’t you dare be far too jolly

The glow’ring grumblers sob

In second cups of woe-is-me

While sunbeams dance and bob

Don’t you be too sure of summer

Broods the blue pessimist

While big sky is full of laughter

And earth is golden heaven-kissed

© Janet Martin

Springs in our Valleys...

 Sharing a devotion from a book Springs in the Valley by Mrs. Chas. E. Cowman

Unwavering, Your kindness

Unshakeable, Your grace

Oh God, forgive our blindness

When we forget our place

Immeas’rable, Your mercy

Immutable, Your love

God, pardon naive posses

That loot love’s treasure trove

Infinite, is Your wisdom

Abiding is Your peace

Forgive mortal temptation

To let sight be belief

Universal, Your power

Encompassing, Your clout

You send sunshine and shower

Forgive us when we doubt

Eternal, Your redemption

To all who call on Thee

The Author of salvation

And Immortality

© Janet Martin

 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 

The life I now live in the body, 

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

Gal.2:20

Worth Striving For...

I've had much reason recently to re-evaluate what/who 'fires my engine'. 

How about you? 

What gets your motor running in the morning (besides coffee;-)?

Worth striving for...

...for eyes to see the majesty of The Weaver; He threads

The loom that ushers bloom where bud to dark, stark limb is wed

In cloven fold pink, mauve, green, gold, indigo, crimson pause

And trust the timing of the Touch that ordained nature’s laws

For tender heart; the art that scarred its canvas first is cursed

With envy, spite and greed; sin’s seed the blight that births man’s worst

Enemy, Self; the pelf it pilfers to stuff dust-framed hull

Would hush bold boast in utter shame if God exposed the full

For hands that help and hold, and fold in humble, earnest prayer

Marked with wrinkles diamonds chiseled from mines of faithful toil and care

Not wrung with worthless worry or laid lazy in fat laps

But busy with life’s beauty as love comforts, cheers and claps

For mouth that knows when to stay closed; to master the flesh-bit

That drips with idle tsk-tsk if we fail to bridle it

But rather to gather thought first then let speech gently spawn

An arm around the downcast soul, a shoulder to lean on

For feet that travel second miles without a backward glance

To look for reimbursement, nay, but steps that leap and dance

So when the end of Time extends a welcome mat of rest

These well-worn shoeless feet will know they gave life’s run their best

For ears to hear more than the noise that stirs impulse; my God

Pity the one who does not know Thy Voice that tunes the sod

For Hope, not wish and want to taunt faith’s formless Certainty

For more, much more of Thee, my God, and less, much less of me

© Janet Martin

Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isa. 54:10

Take a Minute to Marvel...

Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows. 

James 1:17

Take a minute

Then look in it

Count God’s gifts to

You and I

Look how laughter

Sweetens after

Sorrow spills then

Passes by

Touch the places

That love graces

With meek, holy

Reverence

Soon the motion

Of Time’s ocean

Tunes a tide of

Severance

It is never

Always winter

Sea of seasons

Ebbs and flows

Trouble-bubble

Harvest, stubble

Winter harbours

Summer's rose

See, love's hours

Bloom like flowers

In the gardens

Of our hearts

Take a minute

And look in it

At the beauty

It imparts

Not for nothing

Is the Something

That we suffer,

Savour, oh,

We can weather

Any weather

Through the grace where-

By we go

Want is surprised…

Time is baptized

With mercies

That leaves thought awed

Take a minute

And look in it

At the tender

Touch of God

Over, under

Ages thunder 

With God's love

Misunderstood

Calm or chaos

God is with us

Always faithful

Kind and good

 

© Janet Martin