Like All Days Do (written for Christmas Day and every day between)

 That's the way life is...

heaped platters stripped beneath ever-eager hunger!

Today has slipped like all days do

Into that crypt of sparkles spent

The pictures it has brushed from view

Still waft in poetry unkempt

Where hug turns into tug-of-heart

Twixt Here and where What Was resides

As we become wise to the art

Of hello, (but farewell disguised)

...so then we do not pine so much

Keened to the Reaper’s quickened blade

We learn to linger ‘neath the touch

Of memories still being made

And do not ask for more or less

Than what we have right here, right now

Lest present would-be happiness

Is lost or overlooked somehow

As time in its imperfect charge

Stuns as with its persistent claim

While teaching us to live love large

Before we go from whence we came

 After the heaped platter succumbs

To Hunger's ever-eager haste

As echoes strew like starry crumbs

While we are intent on the taste

© Janet Martin

Let It Be Unto Us...A Little Christmas Meditation

May the Reason for the Season be our joy
and fill us with awe and wonder!
as we 'kneel at the manger'
and worship Him!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Lord, let us be like Mary who said, ‘be it unto me’

Like Joseph who trusted in you for all He could not see

Like the shepherds who believed what the angel told to them

Then dropped what they were doing and hastened to Bethlehem

Like the wise men who heard and traveled from regions afar

And did not stop until they found the meaning of the star

So Lord, let it be unto us as in those olden days

May we seek till we find Jesus then bow in humble praise

Amen

© Janet Martin

Sometimes we hear these songs so often the words are almost lost on us...

I love the less familiar last two stanzas of this hymn!

Lyrics for 

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

1 It came upon the midnight clear,
that glorious song of old,
from angels bending near the earth
to touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
from heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,
to hear the angels sing

. 

2 Still through the cloven skies they come
with peaceful wings unfurled,
and still their heavenly music floats
o'er all the weary world;
above its sad and lowly plains,
they bend on hovering wing,
and ever o'er its Babel sounds
the blessed angels sing. 

3 And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow,
look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing! 

4 For lo! the days are hastening on,
by prophet seen of old,
when with the ever-circling years
shall come the time foretold
when peace shall over all the earth
its ancient splendors fling,
and the whole world send back the song
which now the angels sing.

Because We Find Ourselves In Need of More...

 This is the time of year when resources of sundry mien are rapidly depleted...

My prep-work this Christmas has been anything but neat and tidy

as it is squeezed into corners of time carved out amidst other chores and commitments!

I decided to bake orange-cranberry scones for some loved ones who need treats with less sugar 

due to diabetes and special diets etc. midst drying bread for dressing 

midst daughter's baking projects...

Because often we find ourselves in need of more

Patience

Energy

Time,

Money,

Trust

Love

We should never hit the ground running

Without

first

Reaching

for

Grace

from

above

© Janet Martin

Because We Find Ourselves In Need...

 Here we are!

Two sleeps away from Christmas Day!

Here we are; where the raised bar that lowered day by day

Has handed out and gathered in whilst winnowing away

Where we had stood a year before and marveled at the pace

Of highs and lows that ope and close the rose of granted grace

That unfolds in its petals the mettle of mortal woe

As happiness of holding close turns into letting go

Where here we are, a little kind and wiser than before

Because we find ourselves in need of God a little more

Because we start to glimpse the brevity of numbered days

Swept up like dust beneath a broom of subtle, seasoned ways

And we begin to recognize in all we cannot see

The sacred beauty in the prize of Opportunity

Where here we are; the bar dusk lowered melts in pink and gold

To offer from Past’s molded cast Time’s newness to our hold

Where wishes that were granted are implanted with request

As gratitude and worship learn to trust God for His best

© Janet Martin

Wishing you true joy as we dwell on the Reason for the Season!

 
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, 

having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This Is Personal (No Matter Who We Are)

 No matter who we are His gift/gifts are free...

No matter who we are or where; How smart or philosophical

Or poor in what the world deems rich or true or intellectual

The common ground we share is found not in survival’s rigmarole

But in the Bible-truth by He who breathed in man a living soul

Whether we are a super-star or obscure as a grain of sand

Or activist or pacifist or fist tight-clenched or outstretched hand

We all must choose who we will serve before that final Door we brave

Because we cannot thwart the One who will escort us through the grave

The Ultimate for all of us resides beyond what we can prove

The Evidence of faith must first put on The Greatest of These; love

For who of us can boast save in what grace of God alone allowed

Therefore no matter who we are, we all stand out in Mercy’s crowd

Where God so loved the world He sent His only Son to pay sins debt

No one is righteous save through Him and only Him (lest we forget)

Foolish to bicker or quibble where Opinion may disagree

Better to pray and guard that which outlives this brief mortality

…because no matter who we are we all will stand before the Lord

To give account; no one left out, He gives both rich and poor His Word

Where Truth is universal; no one the exception to the rule

His law is love, his judgments pure, His commands grievous to the fool

My dear, the common ground we share lies beyond time’s four-season sieve

Naked we came into this world and naked everyone will leave

For flesh and blood cannot inherit that which faith in Christ reserves

When then, no matter who we are, our Soul receives what Choice deserves

© Janet Martin

 

1 Peter 1:3-5

 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 shielded by God’s power 

for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.