Journey to Deeper Love and Gratitude

The older I get the more real and dear this cry of David becomes:

Psalm 130:1-4

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

2 Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness,

so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

Give Me Jesus 

Life can be mean when left to means that seem to make first-impulse-sense 

When we react without weighing the impact of the consequence 

We tend to think after the chink in faulty armour is exposed 

Rather than first examine best and worst outcome scenarios 

To test the measure of time’s treasure that slips through us breath by breath 

Is an awak’ning undertaking that could scare us half to death 

Because the laws of cause and effect are not tricked by time or rank 

Where the reaping is in keeping with the kind of seeds we plant 

To think that we can wink at wisdom and somehow not pay the price 

Or that desire is no liar when it ignores sound advice 

Is but to play the fool most truly no matter how cool it seems 

For consequence compensates duly what conscience and choice esteems 

If God kept tally of our folly who could stand and who could pay 

But to repentance he grants pardon and His strength to face the day 

Love incomparable makes bearable the harvest, not subdued 

Obedience, the evidence of love and humble gratitude 

© Janet Martin 

All Fellow-Bumpkins

So much anger,

division, diversion,

strong opinion leading to violence 

instead

of searching the scriptures

(therein lie the answers)

Instead of kneeling

before God

with bowed heart and head

May this be a day where we say little 

and love and pray much!

Where we exchange opinion 

for obedience

anger for grace, 

and gentleness and such

A day when 'love thy neighbor' 

is more than 

The Second-greatest command

May today be a step 

in the right direction

by unclenching fists

and shaking a hand

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: 

Fear God and keep his commandments, 

for this is the duty of all mankind.

Eccles.12:13

this is me...

home-body, home-maker,

prefer coffee to tea...

 

...but the thing to remember

whether you or me

There's so much more to all of us

than anyone can see!!

What makes you tick 

What makes me tock 

Is varied as 

The streets we walk 

But culture, country, 

Creed or race 

We are all bumpkins 

Of God’s grace 

Some like the beat 

Of city street 

Some seek the 

Solitude of books 

Or lanes or brooks 

Or other nooks 

Beyond the noise 

Of horns and looks 

Tis quite a tousled 

Thoroughfare 

This garden of 

Humanity 

But no matter 

Who, when or where 

The same God cares 

For you and me 

Some of us rich 

Or poor or plain 

Or vain with very 

Fine façade 

But that is quite 

Beside the point 

We are all bumpkins 

Needing God 

This country we 

Call time and place 

Is but a stepping- 

Stone you see 

Before God reaches 

Down and plucks 

Us from here

To eternity 

Some roll with life’s 

Punches, some hide 

Some deny Truth 

And think they win 

But we, all bumpkins 

God-designed 

Cannot escape 

The soul within 

So whether loud 

Or shy or proud 

Or meek, small, tall 

Weak, strong, mean, kind 

We have one thing 

In common, dear 

All fellow-bumpkins 

God designed 

© Janet Martin

...so hello, fellow bumpkin😁

Deep-into-October Tableau or October on a Blue-gray Afternoon

 

Written in honour of this brooding, blue-gray deep-into-October afternoon

The garden has yielded its final gem 

The tree relinquishes its diadem 

The field is shorn where corn and barley gleamed 

Like gold and silver lakes as sunshine streamed 

Through a flue, gold and blue to mist-kissed piers 

The lily-dappled mead has shed its tears 

And summer like a picnic counterpane 

Is shaken out and folded up again 

The flower wonderland I dearly prized 

Where I would linger, petal-mesmerized 

Is stark and still, its thrill of grandeur spent 

Reminding me that all we have is lent 

The decanter of warmer days is drained 

The cricket melody gradually waned 

Until even the scattered cadence thinned 

And all I hear now is the brooding wind 

The chubby junco bobs among the leaves 

Quite unaware that these are autumn’s sheaves 

I wander without reason through bloom's wake 

How can such sweetness rouse such a raw ache 

Where fallow turns to furrow ‘neath the plow 

Where all we ever have is here and now 

Where we are torn between sorrow and awe 

Where earth seems so at peace with Nature’s Law 

October on a blue-gray afternoon 

Is like a bit of heaven gone too soon 

Each tree crowned in a halo, russet-bronze 

That drips and slips until the big sky yawns 

Through branches stark-naked and bold 

Etched in gnarled splendor for all to behold 

And a rush, sort of like a sudden sea 

Surges through us in spellbound sympathy 

I take my tea outside to watch the show 

The slow unraveling of red-yellow 

While dusk drops deep blue tints above yon hill 

A hint of woodsmoke wafts upon the chill 

And I am fully glad and sad at once 

Where October is a flickering sconce 

Set like a centerpiece on a buffet 

Of colour turning burnished brown and gray 

© Janet Martin 

Resounding Praise for Abounding Love

Psalm 103:1

The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 

he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 

as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 130:3-4

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,

so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

May our outlook always be an up-look!

The scenery changes with the season...

but never the Reason of hope!

The valley of reflection can feel cold and dark and wet 

It steals the light of laughter if we linger there too long 

The weight of condemnation can crush us with sad regret 

If we forget that God forgives and helps us carry on 

This is the day that He has made to look ahead, not back 

To walk upon the stepping-stones we stumbled on before 

To be aware of what we have in spite of all we lack 

God’s grace always sufficient for whatever lies in store 

Futile to dwell where we can never alter what is done 

Better to focus on the mercy of this present morn 

For He forgives the sinner through the merit of his Son 

As far as east is from the west, man’s transgression is borne 

Then when the deceiver attempts to drag us to a pit 

Of doubt and dark despair remember He who loves us so 

His kindness and compassion do not recount our debt 

But only sees the perfect grace He grants whereby we go 

His love abounds and metes the grounds for peace and happiness 

If we ask he will give and if we seek him we will find 

He is faithful and just and forgives us if we confess 

Then pray we live to love him with heart, soul and strength and mind 

For HE IS, WAS and WILL BE faithful, changeless, GREAT I AM

Ah, what is man that God is mindful of mortal at all

And yet for man He gave His Son to be the slaughtered Lamb

And save all who believe from that which sin conceived; the fall

Therefore no valley of despair is deep or dark enough

To hide us from the One who sees exactly where we are

For nothing can separate us from His abounding love

Ah, look! the hand that holds us bears love's signature, a scar

© Janet Martin

Thy-Way or My-Way Highway

It's All About Him-Alan Jackson

How easy it is fall from Sunday morning's pew-secure 'Thy-Way, Lord

to Monday morning's My-way Highway😐

Yesterday's message 

and the past few devotions

...are part of the inspiration for this poem

Holy and wholly Thine 

Lord, teach us how to pray 

Thy kingdom come 

Thy will be done 

Thou Potter, I, the clay 

Except the kernel falls 

Into the ground and dies 

It cannot yield 

The goodly field 

That broken seed supplies 

The hardest death we die 

Is veiled in life's façade

As we resign 

The will of ‘mine’ 

To ‘Thine alone, Oh God’ 

Aha, tis not the gift 

That anchors and assures 

But mortal lives 

Through He who gives 

And only death/faith secures 

How easily we fall 

Not to the ground to die 

But to the taunts 

Of selfish wants 

And mistrust’s crafty lie 

Holy and wholly Thine 

No lesser pleas avail 

Thy kingdom come 

Thy will be done 

All else is but to fail 

© Janet Martin 

Thy kingdom come, 

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Matt 6:10

Noteworthy Reminders...

 

Faithful One

He Will Hold Me Fast

The sorrows of this broken world will never disappear 

The trouble man is born to pours out heartache, pain and fear 

The battle against odds that seem stacked against sweet success 

Would cause us to despair and be robbed of all happiness 

Be of good cheer; we who believe know One that does not fail 

Take heart; if God is for us then none greater can prevail 

Cast all your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you 

Think on these things; whatever is pure, righteous, noble, true 

Greater is He within us than he who is in the world 

Nothing can separate us from God’s love freely unfurled 

Do not despair though tribulation multiplies it sum 

These are the things He told to us that He has overcome 

And He will keep in perfect peace those who will trust in God 

His thoughts and ways are higher than ways we tend to applaud 

For if the Son has set us free then we are free indeed 

According to God’s riches He will satisfy our need 

And when we start to see the signs that fill our hearts with fear 

Take courage; for the day of His return is drawing near 

Our God cannot lie; what he says He will do

So be content; for God will never forsake me or you

© Janet Martin 

1 Cor.1:18

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, 

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Comforted With Leaves

The dirt road winds its luring form

...through summers in our sighs

The dirt road winds its luring form through summers in our sighs 

Where autumn rain has calmed its storm of dust and butterflies 

The hazy, lazy melodies that ruffled leafy arc 

Surrenders summer’s symphonies like teardrops in the dark 

As purple aster stars are snuffed like sparks that climb the air 

And harvest is hope’s homage plucked and shucked with grateful prayer 

The lark has fled to kinder climes; the lily of the field 

No longer tolls with fragrant chimes to souls learning to yield 

To time’s insistent metronome of tick by tock tirade 

Where winds rip like a steel-tooth comb through woodland’s serenade 

And milkweed pods like plump professors dressed in proper best 

Are primed for the potation that will pop their velvet vests

 

...to empty out its lining in silk parachutes, seed-sized 

To waft above the shining countryside, frost-fossilized 

And we are not so sorry now to see the summer fade 

Seduced by nature’s know-how in October’s yellow glade 

Where autumn’s climax is a-flutter with color’s collage 

Before it gilds gardens and gutters in leaf-decoupage

 

And so, we let our summer hearts be comforted with leaves 

And hills bedecked with stellar art no earth-artist achieves 

And so, we let October-awe heal wounds left by a blade 

Wielded by the orthodox law of tick-tock promenade 

That marches through our inmost parts, where if one loves one grieves

And so we let our summer hearts be comforted with leaves

© Janet Martin 

...the purple aster-stars are snuffed

Poem-Contemplations/Compilations From My Little Corner of Countryside

I love the way the seasons play upon the harps of countryside 

Their melody of majesty spills from plucked earth-strings far and wide 

I love how no one gets enough of what One greater than us grants 

Ah, don’t it make us wanna sing and don’t it make our heart-feet dance 

And don’t it wake a mystic ache as we partake of Beauty’s let

To trust the Hand that fills the land with such a gorgeous pirouette 

© Janet Martin 

I Want to Want… 

I want, not green-eyed envy when someone seems to collect 

With ease my dreams and fantasies I have not tasted yet 

I want to want unjealous joy 

And not let green-eyed mon destroy 

The happiness that waits for me in love’s kind-mind humility 

© Janet Martin 

In Plain Sight 

Be not deceived; God sees the heart 

Where our true passion lies 

He is not taken by the art 

Of winking, batted eyes 

But ever He seeketh to find 

In both aged and youth 

Worship that is humble and kind 

In spirit and in truth 

© Janet Martin 

Whether-challenge 

Whether our corner is noisy or quiet 

A color-riot or somber and plain 

Whether we borrow or whether we buy it 

Whether the weather is sunshine or rain 

Whether we ramble or rush with intention 

Push through the bramble or sail the high sea 

Whether we worry or wait without hurry 

Whatever else our whether may be 

God is the Giver of all that we savour 

Whether we consider Him, or not 

So thus, it behooves us if pray, He so moves us 

To give to the Giver the best we have got 

© Janet Martin 

Subtle Shuttle 

My, my, the metronome of moments 

Moves with smoothest ease 

It gathers both highlights and low blows 

Into memories 

My, my, time’s loom in us is subtle 

Where a shuttle whirs 

Weaving breath by breath a luminous 

Heath of lost summers 

© Janet Martin 

From the premonition of perhaps 

A sharp-edged awareness is born 

As we honestly admit our utter dependence 

On He who orchestrates the morn 

From the premonition of perhaps 

A world of fear or faith unfolds 

It all depends upon the vantage-point 

And the hand to which one holds 

© Janet Martin