I Ask Not For Understanding...Just Faith

While I was writing this I found out about a barn fire in our community, 

I read Today's Daily Bread devotion: below is the first paragraph:

In the Middle Eastern country where they live, Adrian and his family suffer persecution for their faith. Yet, through it all, they demonstrate Christ’s love. Standing in his church courtyard, which was pummeled by bullets when terrorists used it as training ground, he said, “Today is Good Friday. We remember that Jesus suffered for us on the cross.” And suffering, he continued, is something that believers in Jesus there understand. But his family chooses to remain in their homeland: “We’re still here, still standing.”...

I prayed for my mom who this week was tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. She is doing reasonably well (over the worst, we hope) and is in the 3rd week of Quarantine. Please can you remember her in your prayers and pray for dad's protection?! 

I revisited a WOW-some Message I listened to yesterday by Dr. Charles Stanley...

 

I talked to hubby and daughter Emily on the phone for a while...about life!

...and in all of it found pieces to press into poem.

Praying this Good Friday, that soul-searching turns into worship in spirit and in truth...

 (and for my Russian friend/friends)

The STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL version below!

I ask not for understanding but for faith to ‘just believe’

Taking at God’s Word His promise of the life we will receive

Yes indeed, we will have trouble, but His Name is like a tow’r

Standing firm amidst the rubble; the cross cannot lose its pow’r

I ask not for understanding but for faith to ‘just obey’

To take up the cross of service and to follow all the way

For what profit is the measure of a pleasure-seeking goal

If the gain of this world’s treasure claims the price-tag of the soul

I ask not for understanding but for faith to ‘just endure’

Time is like a little teardrop on the cheek of Evermore

Where salvation grants Hope’s Wings that help us soar above earth’s loss

As we bow in humble worship in the shadow of the cross

© Janet Martin

Looking Forward to a New Normal after COVID-19

 (*the old normal was referring to seeing my family, my grand-children,
my friends and church-family...)
 But that will never feel like the old normal either!
So much sweeter and holier than EVER before!)

Yesterday I texted my sister 'I miss the *old normal!!'

 After listening to this: Night of Prayer

I recant!

"Oh, God Help us never return to pick up where we left off!"

(if you stop listening before the end of the video how MUCH you will miss💕)

May we not dream of picking up where we left off before

A universal wake-up call came, pounding at our door

May we never be bitter at the fear and loss that spawned

A humble reassessment of life and its great Beyond

The harder that the shell has grown the more painful the break

Lord, You can melt a heart of stone, then, cause our hearts to ache

Until we yield without design or some safe-guarded sin

And with repentance genuine, Confess, and thus begin

May we never return to live half-loves of skin and bone

Afraid of who or what might infringe on its ‘comfort-zone’

But may we, heart and soul, be transformed through our minds renewed

Humbled into love, pure and true, with holy gratitude

And as we pick up pieces after this disease is spent

May we revere the Hand from whence each day’s mercies are lent

And may we never strive to return to what was before

But learn, through prayer, as we let go, God gives us so much more

© Janet Martin

If my people, who are called by my name, 

will humble themselves and pray 

and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, 

then I will hear from heaven, 

and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chron.7:14

The Sweeter, Calvary

 The heavens offer an endless buffet of awe...

from morning to evening yesterday, a constant declaration of God's glory!

"The heavens declare the glory of God; 

the skies proclaim the work of his hands."

Psalm 19:1

The less earth has to offer

The more we start to dwell

On what awaits hereafter

(Either Heaven or hell)

Heaven, the glorious promise

To those who trust in He

Who sent His Son to save us

From hell’s eternity

The less earth has to offer

The more we start to think

About the Divine Author

Above life’s little blink

We ponder the estrangements

That cut us down to size

And start to make arrangements

For Soul that never dies (if we are wise)

The less earth has to offer

The dearer Heaven waits

Time’s tear-anointed coffer

But the Segue to Gates

That will either swing open

To faith’s focus revealed

Or, past the point of pardon

Remain forever sealed

The less earth has to offer

The more our spirit yearns

For a Place so much better

Than this world’s brief returns

As eager expectation

Begins to override

Our natural inclination

To selfishness and pride

The less earth has to offer

The more we cling to God

The trials that we suffer

May seem a grievous rod

But wakes in heirs of heaven

A weight, worthy of care

The gift of sins forgiven

And hope beyond compare

Far sweeter than the laughter

That thrills this death-stoked dome

The endless ever-after

Of Heaven’s home-sweet-home

Forbid we stoop to scoffing

Truth’s Sole/Soul Supremacy

The less this earth's cold off'ring

The sweeter, Calvary

© Janet Martin

 Future Glory

And if we are children, then we are heirs: 

heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ

—if indeed we suffer with Him, 

so that we may also be glorified with Him.

I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable 

 to the glory that will be revealed in us.  

The creation waits in eager expectation 

for the revelation of the sons of God.…

Romans 8:17-19

Take Heart; The Cross Is Not The End

 Life since COVID-19 makes us really miss

'the good old days' doesn't it?

But these days many are turning to or turning back to God

What do we choose, suffering to draw us nearer to God

or ease and prosperity with God forgotten?!

 This Easter season we are without excuse

to kneel at the cross!

Love comes in many forms

So does hate

Life’s spirit-testing storms

Will abate

Nothing stays where it is

Forever

The bond that fastens This

Will sever

The loom that weaves and weds

Life’s duty

Entwines contrasting threads

For beauty

Take heart, when dark of night

Compasses

God’s everlasting light

Surpasses

When life turned upside down

Unsettles

And longing is a crown

Of nettles

When courage is a groaned

Surrender

God still abides; enthroned

Defender

Love comes in many forms

Staff and rod

Beneath the testing storms

Hand of God

Take heart, this woebegone

Hurt and loss

Pales in comparison

To Christ's cross

The cross is not the end

Then take heart

The eyes of faith, my friend

See in part

When death full sight imparts

We will find

A mist of broken hearts

Left behind

© Janet Martin

 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

    In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?

 In God, whose word I praise,
    in the Lord, whose word I praise— 

 in God I trust and am not afraid.
    What can man do to me?

Psalm 56:3-4-10-11