To Incognito Athletes...

 My cousin Wayne, (mentioned here) 46 years old and bed/chair ridden 

because of MS and the loss of part of a leg in a farm accident,

 is one of the most valiant 'athletes'

I have ever met!

Also, another one of my faithful readers
is suffering immensely because of a fall 6 weeks ago and now some added complications!
She was admitted to the hospital last night and is feel physically and emotionally at her limit!
Will you pray for Jan R., for healing, strength and encouragement?

Will you pray that they (and we) may be faithful

in the fight to the finish! 

Because no one can predict who will cross the finish line first!!!

Philippians 3:14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize 

of God's heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

Failure and success are like competitors in a race

And it is hard to tell sometimes which side the favor lies

We tend to measure success by position or by pace

But the One at the finish line sees beneath its disguise

I’ve seen a shadow of a man put ‘better men’ to shame

Humility is something that collects no accolades

But rather gives full credit to a Greater Worthy Name

Knowing our time on earth is like a bloom that quickly fades

I’ve watched one bedridden yet beating ‘great athletes’ by smiles

Surrender is a hard fought thing until we fully yield

And it is not always the one who boasts the most in miles

But he who knows that soon the inner man will be revealed

 

Failure and success are not always what they may appear

The road we see runs through a veil that ends the wend of Time

Beyond the slope where hope vies with the sigh of now and here

To the Reward after the race and its arduous climb

Not all who run will win a Prize; then pray and pray and pray

Lest we become distracted by the way faith’s rivals run

And test the spirit lest by decoys we are drawn away

And miss the most beautiful prize of these two words ‘well done’

© Janet Martin

...and then today's devotion fit right in to the topic!! 

Ode to July

 Canadian July leaves little to complain about 

except maybe sometimes it's too quick!

Mist-mellow ambience, yellow and blue

Aura of romance amidst much to do

Ditch-garden-meadow a billow of bloom

Sun-shadow willow-harps serenade noon

Something ‘bout July evokes surf-like roars

Rushing, receding across heart-cupped shores

Sense of sabbatical sweetens tick-tock

Lavishes looking with pink hollyhock

Tunes untamed tempos with flower-full fronds

Tickles the wheat field from sea-green to bronze

Something ‘bout July rouses with each morn

Joy for life’s roses in spite of the thorn

See how the countryside spills grand tableaus

See how the Artist awes us with His prose

See, nature’s nuances never grow old

Sparking and soothing the sigh of the soul

Something ‘bout July feels like heaven’s poem

Something ‘bout July feels like coming home

Hello, Queen Ann, your lace-looms whir on queue

Chicory-fringe, we’ve come to expect you

Hello, white chamomile, how do you grow

Heaped along roadsides like summery snow

Something ‘bout July makes gladness complete

Clap of the screen door and slap of bare feet

Sunflowers flower before the bud breaks

Bachelor buttons spill little blue lakes

Salvia-fountain is ready to burst

Hummingbird hovers to quench nectar thirst

Something ‘bout July bids us to behold

That which is filling morrow’s echo-mold

Loveliness leaps like a hymn from earth’s heart

Happiness laughs; what is man to bear part

Of such a melody Mercy composed

Glimpses of Gloryland still unexposed

Something ‘bout July beckons yet fulfills

Making each day a succession of thrills

© Janet Martin

To blog-readers only.
I don't share all my poetry on Facebook but I did link this one to FB
with this remark.
 Why?!!why-why-why?!!! asks my better half when he asked what I'm writing about...
and I'm not sure what to say other than because it just has to be...

Where Fear of God Has Ceased...

We vow that we are smarter now than they were ‘way back when’

Those terrible mistakes they made we will not make again

But then the way it always was, is; history repeats

Because good versus evil never offers easy streets

And as long as the earth remains people will be at odds

And many will be fooled by what Popular Voice applauds

And many, hoping things will not turn out the way they fear

Put faith in something they can see rather than trust/revere

And like a dog returns to its vomit, after the feast

So fools return to folly where the fear of God has ceased

© Janet Martin

 Proverbs 26:11
As a dog returns to its vomit, 

so a fool repeats his folly.

Always Someone...

 ...always someone small who steals the breath of someone tall(-ish)😉

Always someone following somebody in the lead

Always someone harvesting the fruit of fallen seed

Always someone learning what somebody else learned too

Always someone earning what becomes appointed due

Always someone loving while another someone hates

Always someone hurting while another celebrates

Always someone working while a freeloader sits back

Always someone doing more to make up for the slack

Always someone dying and somebody being born

Always some who witness dusk while others greet the morn

Always some who make the best of what seems like the worst

Always someone second because someone else is first

Always someone needing what another has much of

Always someone seeing with opposing points of love

Always someone seeking what another one has found

Always everybody treading Mercy’s holy ground

© Janet Martin

Symptoms of Something Amiss

 The doctor tells us to know our physical bodies,

to be tuned keenly to them so we are aware when something seems off.

Good advice but it got me to thinking we should also be tuned keenly

to the 'spiritual body' aka Undying Soul so we are aware when something seems a little off.

The land in lack of rain is not asymptomatic.

 (a word that's been used a lot recently due to COVID-19)

...and we welcome, like little else, the refreshment of much needed rain!

Symptoms of spiritual drought are just as visible

 though discussed much less than weather!

(BTW, this poem is a self-evaluation exam, not a pointing-fingers-at-you poem

but praying the Holy Spirit will convict all of us of present symptoms

and perhaps our need for spiritual refreshment?!)

Can we truly say with David in Psalm 63:1?

You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.

Symptoms suggest illness

Help pinpoint the source

Symptoms are the telltale signs

Of something off course

Physical or spiritual

Symptoms usually are

The inklings that implicate

Something not on par

Good to be tuned keenly

To body and soul

Diagnose the point before

It consumes the whole

Fear and faith, keen rivals

Cannot coexist

Symptoms tend to escalate

If left unaddressed 

Good to be tuned closely

To the inner core

Recognizing symptoms

We should not ignore

 

© Janet Martin

The church in this COVID-19 season,

is before the firing squad of differing opinion

like we have never experienced.

Maybe time for each of us to do a serious

spiritual check-up? 

How humble and obedient are we willing to be?