Jesus Makes All The Difference

Brandt Jean's Act Of Grace Toward His Brother's Killer

Brandt Jean's forgiveness gives us a small picture of what Jesus has or wants to do in every single life; forgive us...because as Brandt stated, we have all done something we should not do! 

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so,

 I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Jesus~

John 14:2

The window to the world flings wide with daybreak’s blush and gold

The life that we are lent extends Love’s promises once more

Where time, like a tugboat draws us; and whether young or old

We cannot tell how near or far we are to ‘yonder shore’

And who can bear to meet the One who wears redemption’s scars

And realize too late the awful state of Deathless Soul

Jesus and only Jesus breaks guilt’s hopeless prison bars

Jesus and only Jesus makes the broken sinner whole

Jesus makes all the diff’rence in the way we love and live

He wakes in us awareness of a fount where mercies brim

Then, because He forgave us we ought also to forgive

For He makes all things possible if we believe in Him

…and though we do not know as yet what battle we must fight

Jesus makes all the difference if we His Gift receive

Knowing the trying of our faith is but to prove His might

That indwells ev’ry one of us who repent and believe

© Janet Martin

Little did I dream that before this post is up...

how far more deeply relevant the above devotional would become!

(I wrote the poem early this morning but our internet is a little 

like a child playing with a light switch! blinks on and off non-stop)

...but oh, how little we know what a day will hold!

Our dearly beloved pastor Ron Seabrooke passed away suddenly this morning!

We are in heart-broken shock but

we do not mourn as those with no hope...

1 Thess. 3: 13-14

Please pray for comfort for his family
and our church family.
He touched lives world-wide and many mourn our loss and heaven's gain!

Don't Grow Up Too Fast

Don’t grow up too fast little girl, little girl

Daddy’s cherished darling, Mommy’s precious pearl

Leave your dearest dollies scattered everywhere

Childhood is the nearest thing to heaven earth can share

Don’t grow up too fast, little boy, little boy

Mommy’s happy helper, daddy’s pride and joy

Leave your trucks and tractors scattered as you go

Childhood is the nearest thing to heaven earth can know

© Janet Martin

A Birthday Poem For a Friend...As Time Streams By

Happy Birthday, Sasha 

Didn't you just have one?! haha😁 

A year sure isn't very long anymore, is it?!

Hope you are having a super-special day!

Sometimes this is the day I dig out dahlia bulbs but not this year!

I just can't bear to tear their blooms away yet!

It seems that Time streams by in its sequence of dawn-to-dawn

And all too soon, noon-after-noon another year is gone

Easier to tame oceans as they rush across the shore

Than to hold back one moment that sparkles and is no more

We used to collect rocks and stamps and butterflies and such

Today’s collections consist of treasures we cannot touch

Where, tendered to a vault that brims with sentimental gleam

We gaze upon spent days like youth gazes toward the dream

…and we will never find the words to make them understand

How future runs through us like an hourglass full of sand

Or how the calendar never misses a single day

Yet seems somehow as if it skips a few along the way  

And so we learn, because we cannot turn back time, to love

And live as if today is all that life will be made of

Because it seems, as time streams by, the older that we get

We feel some days as if we have not even started yet

And so we vow to find the happiness we else might miss

If we are deaf and blind to This Very Moment That Is

Because it seems, as Time streams by in its numeric sums

The older that we get, ah, the more precious it becomes

The music bitter-sweeter than it was when we were young

The hour fonder-fleeter with each season, here then gone

And oh, it seems as time streams by oft from its weathered banks

All we can say is ‘my, oh, my’ and humbly give God thanks

© Janet Martin

Cause and Effect or Because... and Effectiveness

what are your deepest Woulda-shoulda-s?

If we wallow in those we will never be successful!

Aren't you glad we are encouraged to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead?

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

Phil.3:13

Not always what we’d rather but rather that which we should

For what seems pleasing in the moment is not always good

Deception is a master at defending reason’s cause

It decorates disaster with momentary applause

Effect lasts so much longer than the cause that sets its course

Consequence for the action is a firm, far-reaching force

Therefore discernment looks beyond what seems good at first glance

To see what it will lead to, given enough time and chance

Futile to mourn at heaps that hold what none can resurrect

Better to leave behind what none can find, save in effect

Then learn from our mistakes that made us wiser than we were

Aware that what we do is always hinged to something more

The hardiness of habits makes them very hard to break

Then it is good to be astute in choices that we make

For though at first they may seem too minor to make a fuss

Sooner or later they become the best and worst of us

© Janet Martin

Fall Winds

 Fall is in full, frigid form today!

Welcome Octo-b-r-r-r!

They raid the gleaming tress of tree-tops; parade, trip, tumble and twirl

They chase the loosened leaf like a schoolboy teasing the pretty girl

The heart once heaped with flowered laughter feels a little lost and sad

Soft-torn between the scenes of summer and fall’s apple-pumpkin plaid

They brood outside windows pulled shut against their chilling, surly sweep

They unravel the canopy that lulled a sun warm world to sleep

They wake in us want for kind comforts we forgot in summer’s spree

They make us glad for simple pleasures; supper-soup and cuppa tea

Sometimes they fling a sapphire awning overhead and steps grow light

And we are thankful earth’s undoing does not happen overnight

Sometimes they weigh the leaden heavens with a sea that has no shore

As harvest-time takes a hiatus while fall anthems pour and pour

Reckless rebels that romp about; vexatious rogues, they seem to me

To love to turn us inside out with reluctance and ecstasy

Unorthodox bold Casanovas, they make us admit full-well

That we would miss fall’s ruddy bliss if summer stayed till winter fell

They instigate a kindred spirit with the sympathy of ink

And strike a chord within the poet that inspires her to think

In ways that sunny summer days cannot begin to comprehend

Ah, fall winds kindle winsome whispers only Poem can defend

They plunder frost-bedraggled cornfield’s rustle-weary infantry

They thunder through blue shadows etched on molten, golden twilight’s lea

And propel us from yester-season to Time’s present colour-blast

They let us know for sure and certain that summer’s last days are past

© Janet Martin