Because Love Is Not a Walk in the Park...

 When love is 'performed' out of sheer Duty

It is a thorn void of joy's Beauty

The cost of love can drain the glove where pleasure’s prize is pain

Yet love keeps no account of wrongs but simply loves again

The way we are can scar the best of good intention, oh

With proof that we all need Love’s blood-bought grace whereby we go

…and remind us how much we owed but Love braved and forgave

To free us from the clutches of a long and hellish grave

Oh God, failure would be a weight that drives us to despair

For Thought can play tricks to enslave us to dread’s gloomy lair

But Thou, Creator God, art greater than torment of fear

Your Hope in all love’s heartache is an anchor for its tear

Where agony of sorrow, when love seems to fail somehow

Is healed a little as we reach to touch Thy thorn-pierced brow

Ah, Love; sometimes the masquerade of loud and flashy frauds

Seduces us to lust after the glut of lesser gods

But there is only One through Whom Love was, is and will be

And God will prove in time enough, His authenticity

For He is Love, and all who love (His face hid by Time’s veil)

Bear witness to kind proof of He whose Law will never fail

Therefore, no matter what may lie before us (or behind)

Love soothes the soul with mercies everlasting, ever kind

Where all that we encounter is an opportunity

To place our bodies on the altar of humility

And offer Self as living sacrifice to He who gave

Himself in perfect love to free us from hate’s hellish grave

‘There is no fear in love’ oh God, drive out the foe of thee

Who seeks to lure us from the comfort of Love’s Surety

And screams bold accusations to we, all broken at best

(For trial is not hate from God but ‘love put to the test’)

Where we could be persuaded to believe the devil’s lies

And be intimidated by The Vile Accuser’s cries

…but for the holy confidence in love of God alone

Where cost of love can drain the needy glove of flesh and bone

But never can annul the miracle performed within

Where Love redeemed the convict and forgave us every sin

And broke the chains that Hope maintains until that Solemn Day

When love, God’s love at last will have the perfect, final say

© Janet Martin

and a good read here on love' Love is not whatever you want it to be...

 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, 

God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

 1 John 4:12

Prayer-Stair

 Here's to that sacred work of Stair-building...

A mother’s prayers could pave a stairway to the moon and through the stars

For cares of love can press so hard where happiness is full of scars

The child that makes Her laugh and weep in that quick leap to woman, man

Can prime a mother’s heart with prayer like nothing else in this world can

Where time is never kind enough to satisfy its thirst for tears

Where modern-day Goliaths still test David-faith with taunting fears

Where she must often reach to touch the hem of grace to heal the void

That began when each newborn left Her deeply awed and overjoyed

Where she will never know the freedom she does not ever desire

Where, as they grow she feels the tug that keeps the Torch of prayer a-fire

And Hope must bind Her heart and mind or else how could she bear the Must

That unravels a maze of ways to teach Her how to Simply Trust

© Janet Martin  

 After sacrificing the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. ²⁶ “Sir, do you remember me?” Hannah asked. “I am the very woman who stood here several years ago praying to the Lord. ²⁷ I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. ²⁸ Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.” And they^[h] worshiped the Lord there.

1 Sam.1:25-28

For June's Fortunes

The fortune of June's fount flows free

As plush rush ravishes the tree

And startles pouting infidels

With gardens spouting flower-bells

June sprouts the gracious proof of God

From wonderlands of seed-stoked sod

And prods us to curtsies and bows

That only sheen of green can rouse

June probes the bearded irises

(God always keeps His promises)

Where peony, delphinium, rose

Small glimpses of His face expose

He makes us laugh for the sheer joy

Of sun-frocked girl and barefoot boy

And lures us to the sun-kissed glade

Or to deep pools of maple-shade

June cheers us where the brook-song brims

And every bud is filled with hymns

They burst through dust's sin-cursed veneer

To waken worship's humble tear

June bids us take a longer look

At grand-scapes, not of picture book

And fills the hunger of our gaze

With nature’s bloom-groaning buffets

...and authors praise, so old yet new

For earth so green, heaven so blue

For He who tunes the stratosphere

That always brings us June, my dear

© Janet Martin

Strange But True

As I was reading from Matthew,
Esp. the Sermon on the Mount (ch.5,6&7)

I tried to picture what it must have been like for these people to hear Jesus' words, 

so foreign to the jot and tittle of Law they followed/feared!

How strange, the words they heard Him speak,

When struck, to turn the other cheek

When robbed, give more on top of that

And do not ask to have it back

How strange the words they heard Him say

To love your enemies and pray

To help the poor, but secretly

Not so other people might see

How strange, the words this Teacher said

He called Himself the Living Bread

The one who hates, a murderer

The one who lusts, adulterer

How strange the words where crowds amassed

To hear teachings by law surpassed

Do not seek vengeance, but forgive

And you must lose your life to live

How strange the words they heard Him tell

Broad is the road that leads to Hell

The narrow road, so few will find

To those who persecute, be kind

How true the words they heard Him preach

From miles they came to hear him teach

Of love beyond Law’s ordered ways

Of Temple rebuilt in three days

How strange, the words He said to them

As true today as it was then

But so few seem to care today

For words that never pass away

© Janet Martin

It's Here; Warmth-Weather!

Because finally there isn't a hint of Shiver in the Giver's kindness,

I'm doing an imaginary cartwheel and somersault thankfulness-flip

(and I landed on my feet with my hands in the air!😊)

 After a both-feet-on-the-ground-while-flying, after a no-coat-needed morning-stroll 

this is a poem-commemoration in honor of this long-longed-for luxury!

No need now for optimism’s

Prisms primed with stars

Earth has shrugged off pessimism’s

Leaden prison bars

Raise a toast to honeyed sunshine

Grab a green-grass seat

Laugh with lupine and columbine

Dance with shoeless feet

Twirl like school-girls full of giggle

Leave your cares behind

Plan a little bit of wiggle-

Room in Daily Grind

Revel where blue-beveled heaven

Hoists a parasol

Where a team of golden geldings

Takes us to the ball

...making we of work-clothes fashion

Feel like royalty

As June offers, without ration

Summer’s finery

Perch on window-seats where wonder's

Vintage elixir 

Pours through doors as earth's floor thunders

With bloom's sumptuous blur

© Janet Martin