More Than A Weather Warning

 For the past week the red 'BE ALERT' caution bar has flared continuously

 on the weather network with storm and temperature warnings!

 Imagine if the blue sky flashed with red warning-bars
 or a stop watch to let us know the The Day and The Hour!

But 'no man knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in Heaven or the Son himself.

Only the Father knows!'

Matt.24:36

Be alert, stay on your guard

The hurt and work of life is hard

Pay earnest heed to what you hear

The Word of God is truth, my dear

A solid Rock on which to rest

For time is delicate at best

Vapour of mist that disappears

Into the blue of yesteryears

So be alert, in deed and thought

For the end comes when we think not

© Janet Martin

The Word of God is filled with loving and earnest caution 

for us to be alert

kinda like 'whether warnings'; whether we are paying attention to what matters most!

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Matt 26:41

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. 

Matt.24:42

So be on your guard! Remember that for three years

 I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

Acts 20:31

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

1 Peter 5:8

We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

Heb.2:1

My son, do not lose sight of this: Preserve sound judgment and discernment.

Prov.3:21

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Luke 21:36

Here's Hoping!

 Last night Jim said (while we were watching the All-star Game being played in San Jose, 

while adding logs to the fire to ward of the deep chill from the north)
that he wishes we could move to San Jose and leave this bitter cold behind for good.
 I replied if he moves that would be very sad indeed because
 I am so glad to live in a climate that grants four true seasons, 

so he would be moving all by himself.😀

(no more just chillin' side-by side like two old love-birds)

Then Judy's post this morning added perfect YES-seasoning to

some tids and bits simmering in my poem-pot...

Here's hoping we love each season for what it lends,

because everything in life is but a season!

Here’s hoping we learn to accept what life sends

And love every season for beauty it lends

And never let longing give leave to destroy

With want’s inward pining, today’s would-be joy

Here’s hoping the orchard in winter’s white tress

Rings with sparkling echoes of spent happiness

While wild, the wind whistles up one street then down

Where trees like stark thistles shape harvest’s ghost-town

Here’s hoping we treasure Time’s measure of sand

Aware that whatever we hold in our hand

Is but for a season, like the flowers that bloom

While we cherish, not worship, what none can exhume

Spring; heaven for dreamers with restless bare feet

Summer; like a song of long days, toil sun-sweet

Autumn; awed awareness of Time tender truce

Winter; slows the dreamer once young and footloose

Here’s hoping we learn to let go when we must

To live for far more than Time’s loaned dust-to-dust

To look for the good in each day that God sends

And love every season for Beauty it lends

© Janet Martin

 To every thing there is a season, 

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Eccles.3:1

The Reason I Pray

Yesterday I wrote the Reasons I Write Poetry.

On a far more sacred note today I write a few of the reasons I pray!

I pray to obey Love's command and appeal

Even when words fail me He knows how I feel

I ask God for trust where Unknown veils The Way

I praise Him for mercies unveiling new day

I plead for His Presence to guide, keep and such

For loved ones too far from my fingers to touch

His hand on their shoulder to protect and cheer

His voice in their choices, His Hope in their fear

His joy in their sorrow, His Light in the dark

His strength in their weakness, His word in their heart

I pray and in this way touch the Hand of He

Who orders the Heavens and curbs the wild sea

Who fashions the flower and favours the field

With sunshine and shower for bountiful yield

I pray so that I may not forget His grace

How He gave His Son to redeem human race

Vile curse of sin broken, Death robbed of its goal

In Eternal life for the undying soul

I pray for those blinded by unbelief, hate

…that they will find Truth before it is too late

That they will repent, confess Him and receive

Blood-bought inheritance for all who believe

I appeal to him for forgiveness of sin

Lest an evil shoot starts to take root within

I thank Him for His Word that will never fail

For His perfect love to direct and prevail

I thank Him and thank Him and thank Him again

For Hope springs eternal in spite of life’s pain

For His Pardon suffered and sealed, once for all

Still, I pray for conviction where sin would befall

I pray for believers to fight the good fight

To lean on the One whose way is always right

His thoughts so much higher than man’s want and woe

His goodness and Mercy wherever we go

I thank Him for peace within, while still without

The world suffers, writhing in hate, fear and doubt

I thank Him that no mortal power or threat

Can thwart or usurp I AM’s Immortal ‘Yet’

When every knee will bow, each tongue confess

Jesus; His Lordship and His Righteousness

I thank Him that his joy is our strength and shield

That in His right timing all will be revealed

That in the meantime, we, humble human race

May boldly approach Majesty’s throne of grace

Hallelujah,

Amen

© Janet Martin

The Reason I Write Poetry

a glimpse of this poem's persuasion...

as I gazed out where the sun and wind had whipped the yard
into blue and white still-life masterpiece the delight was more than mere body could contain!

 Wood-pecker patiently waiting his turn...

We've enjoyed a non-stop feather-flurry at the feeders today!

above and below, finches, junco, chick-a-dee

 

above, nuthatch, below, mourning dove

above, lunch-rainbow, below, winter-picnic

for love of white canvas soft-feathered with blue

for sparkle of laughter, for friendship of you

for joy of day breaking and waking within

the love a lifetime of ways to begin

for gladness and sadness captured tenderly

this is the reason I write poetry

for love of a flower, a bower, a bird

for Beauty too rare to be wrested by word

for fancy and fact and matters in between

for nature's kaleidoscopic bronze-gold-green

for all that has been and all that waits to be

for right here, right now, I write poetry

for love of the picture that hides in a pen

for trying to find it again and again

for ballads still silent in ink-fettered bars

for landscapes a-dazzle with diamonds and stars

for moments too grand to let lapse back to sea

this is the reason I write poetry

to honor the shadow that climbs twilight's hill

to dally in meadows to feel freedom's thrill

to spread out a picnic in spite of the snow

beside home-sweet fires beneath a lamp's glow

to wrangle with whispers and then set them free

this is the reason I write poetry

to rhumba, to tango, slow-dance, waltz, foxtrot 

to fly to the moon on a pontoon of thought

to touch you though miles make you seem out of reach

to wander in winter a warm wave-washed beach

to treasure the pleasure of fond memory

 this is the reason I write poetry 

faint semblance of summer though stiff north gales blow

dandelion constellation-studded snow

half-shut-eye half-havens of dusk's dewy mist

dumb-struck elation of creation frost-kissed

reveling in endless possibility

this is the reason I write poetry

Janet Martin

Happy January 25th!
a month past Christmas!

The Hope of Generations Still To Come...

"They knew he was at his happiest when he talked about money" said someone I spoke to last week-end of a man who had passed on before either of us were born.

(this comment sort of jolted me into wondering what I will be remembered for as 'my happiest')

The above comment and this post by Cyndy

and this headline all culminated to inspire this morning's poem!

No matter who was or what will be God IS!

May we keep handing down the faith of our fathers,

the only Living Hope for days to come!

Oh, plus, I wanted to write about picnics on this wild blustery morning...

hope of simple joys to come!

The day will come where nothing tells of places that we filled

Or faces that we kissed or hands we held; our whispers stilled

The earth and its fullness thereof, others will taste and touch

In gardens, picnics in the park, in supper soup and such

As they, quite unaware that you and I loved these things too

Will laugh and fret and fuss and do the things that people do

…and it may seem as if we never talked or walked or felt

Our dreams like sums of dust or snowflake-stars that fall then melt

And, though the ebb and flow of dawn to dusk still sweeps the earth

And though the tide of seasons rolls and tolls with death and birth

And though we might believe that 'we who were' are long forgot

A bit of us lives on through what we learned then in turn, taught

The hope of generations still to come depends on us

To tell them there is more to life than its brief fret and fuss

To never leave unspoken the Greatest Story of love

Instilling sacred purpose in life’s common push and shove

Where pray, the best of us remains in strains of purest chime

God’s Truth, fool-proof, to offer hope until the end of Time

© Janet Martin

1 Peter 1:3-9

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 

By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope 

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, 

reserved in heaven for you,who through faith 

are protected by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief 

in various trials, so that the authenticity of your faith—more precious than gold, 

which perishes even though refined by fire—

may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, 

 you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

now that you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.