A Wee Plea

 "It's true" Little Girl said with a big sigh.

Daddy said so..." (names of big sister and brother) are going

to be bigger than me for a long, long time".

Lord, give our memory holes, ten miles wide

When smitten where gossip runs wild

And make our hearts as big as the sky

When we look in the eyes of a child

Lord, make our want always lesser than need

Lest greed hampers good intent

And help us remember that deeds are like seeds

Soon fruit-of-our-rendering bent

Lord, make us merchants of fleet moment-gold

Soft, swift it melds to spent years

Show us the worth of the treasure we hold

Before its measure disappears

  Amen

© Janet Martin

The Unembellished Truth

Inspiration for this poem here 

There is no fountain of youth

No pie in the sky, save the moon

The sweet by-and-by

Of middle-July

Has thorns on its roses too

There is no Time-holiday

We cannot save what dusk steals

Nor can we hide

From the winnowing tide

Nipping like pups, at our heels

We’re all in the same boat, love

Sailing earth’s ocean of hurt

Before we lay down

This flake of a gown

In urns or hollows of dirt

We all, ‘neath the shawl of our skin

Harbor an Awesome Mystery

'Til that last exhale

When death's guise will unveil

God’s face and eternity

© Janet Martin

 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, 

Till you return to the ground, 

Because from it you were taken; 

For you are dust, 

And to dust you shall return."

Gen.3:19

(M-m-m!! after reading the above verse I feel like making bread today!)

 2 Samuel 14:14
"For we will surely die 

and are like water spilled on the ground 

which cannot be gathered up again. 

Yet God does not take away life, 

but plans ways so that the banished one 

will not be cast out from him.

The Good Life

I get it so mixed up sometimes. I think life is good when it caters to my personal comfort

rather than when I commit/submit to God’s call, all for His glory…

…Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 

Phil. 3:8-11

Life is good

Not because the wood-box is filled

and the sky or the oven spills works of art

Life is good

when I bow my want and will

To the One who sees the heart

Life is good

Not because an orchestra plays

And life is a light-footed waltz

Life is good

When I surrender pride’s chase

To worship the One that nature exalts

© Janet Martin

No Laughing Matter, Love

Some prayers we pray, and pray and pray

We wait and wait and wait

In hopes that ‘They’ will find The Way

Before it is too late

Sometimes we groan beneath a weight of discouragement. 

What we long for (most importantly the soul’s salvation for those who either do not know

 or do not care and because of the eternal impact of this decision) 

...can drive us to our knees in desperate prayer as we plead to faithful God.

Time’s fine line fixed twixt heaven and hell

Is like a thread hinged to a bell

It tolls with each inhale-exhale

Until God rolls back that last Veil

Where Faith’s object we heard about

Will banish any trace of doubt

…then pray we all, aged or youth

Will follow Him, The Way, The Truth,

The Life when this small life is done

Where Life’s Whole Point has just begun

When grace has sealed its guarantee

Heaven or hell’s eternity

This is no laughing matter, love

Time is more than a tattered glove

To cradle ash of love and lust

As we exit its dash of dust

It is the place of grace where we

Choose soul’s eternal destiny

© Janet Martin

 Proverbs 14:12
There is a way which seems right to a man, 

But its end is the way of death.