So...

SO snow-beautiful outside today!

This poem is part heart and part rhyme-and so-challenge😊

So sorry for the consequence that repentance cannot defeat 

So, glory in the confidence through hope that Christ has made complete 

So much that we can never change but grace remains the same throughout 

So, touch the tarmac of rent chains with joy and not shackles of doubt 

So soon the seasons come to pass, these days of grass so swift indeed 

So, tune the reason to rejoice to He who satisfies our need 

So, we do not despair but bear life’s care with kind humility 

So be of good and faithful cheer, God never forsakes you and me 

So, make the most of what becomes the story-sums of yesterday 

So, take the time to be in tune with what will soon be borne away 

So surely on the pearly tides of morn to night, time ebbs and flows 

So purely from the hands of God to surly slights and burly blows 

So near we are to where we will not ever pass this way again 

So, fear the Lord with all thine heart and trust Him in life’s sun and rain 

So, when we leave behind the sheaves that others must take up to tend 

So, then the only thing love grieves is the departure of a friend 

So thankful for the mercies that always exceed our foes and woes

So, bank upon the promises that no enemy overthrows

So do not fear or worry, but be well-versed in God's steadfast Word

So through the highs and lows of life our Focus will be undeterred

© Janet Martin 

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isa.41:10

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt.6:34

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

1 John 4:11

So Much to Be thankful For~ Josh Groban

New Year's Prayer

 

New Year's Resolution-prayer

Posting the annual New Year's Card

(one that belonged to my Grandparents)

People used to send New Year's cards with words of 

thankfulness and encouragement inside!

Let us not be like wisemen 

Leaving gifts that we forget 

Bending to pick up again 

Hope’s cast-offs of fear and dread 

Let us not return to drink 

From the cesspools of this world 

After we bowed at the brink 

Of Living Water unfurled 

Let us not forget the joys 

We embraced on Christmas Eve 

When we return to life’s noise 

Let us still hope and believe 

Let us not return to hills 

To tend flocks of careworn earth 

And forget the song that spilled 

When angels announced His birth 

Let us keep the love we feel 

As we kneel in Bethlehem 

Let us hope in Who is real 

In Thy precious name, amen 

© Janet Martin 

Threshold...

Happy 2021!

And off we go,

Prayer by prayer

and

Day by Day

From this year's threshold as we wonder what 'landscape' 2021 waits to unfold, this:

Deut.11:11-12

But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of 

is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. 

 It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it 

from the beginning of the year to its end.

Where nothing new under the sun waits to stun us with age-old ways 

Where we dust off resolutions and vow to give God greater praise 

Where we wonder at what will be just like we did a year ago 

Before what at the first was hid but now joins Past’s vast picture-show 

The threshold of the New is clean, where what has been greets what will be 

Across time’s stage many a scene waits at the gates of history 

Where what we do with what God grants will become part of a collage 

That soon will join the soldered ranks of dreamlike echo-decoupage 

Where we are at the mercy of far more than measures of a clock 

Where still, the greatest of these, Love, will be a trusty building block 

Where, tick by tock, already the lock to what waits to be has sprung 

Where we stand on the threshold of Mercy renewed to old and young 

Where, from its portal prayers take flight, from mortal to Immortal, oh 

Where none would be fit for the fight but for God’s grace whereby we go 

Where His power and discipline are meted, not in a lump sum 

But as we need it, where He leads through in-betweens of The Outcome 

Where buttercups and upsy-daisy will still spill their grin and groan 

Where people will still drive us crazy and work wear us to the bone 

Where God will never forsake-forget each and every one of us 

Where both Time’s needle and its thread run through Mercy’s Perfect Because 

Where we can fret and fuss and worry, but what good does it achieve 

Dear God above, help us to love You enough to trust and believe 

Then when this year (or perhaps this life) ends, who knows The unknown-ness 

We can look back, as awe runs rife, at Mercy’s Perfect Faithfulness 

© Janet Martin 

Whispering Hope-Daniel O'Donnell and Mary Duff

Aha Moment-um

“We see now how it doesn’t take long to get old” 

Commented Jim as we chatted this morning

 and marveled at the hastier haste of each year. 

From smooth youth to wrinkles

from 'na' to 'aha'

in the ever-present now

time keeps its vow

(this weekend our son is planning on moving out for a few months

so I dug up this song)

Where Does The Time Go?

flashback...

I might not miss Matt's mega-laundry heaps that much but

I will miss cooking for him. 

Jim is gone most weeks and I was always glad for

Matt's working-man appetite to give me an excuse to cook

heartier suppers than we women generally choose.

We see now what those before us, tried to tell us those years before 

We understood how swift the surge of moments washes Decade’s shore 

Where we become more tuned to tides that flow so fluidly through us 

While marveling at how each year seems quicker than the previous 

And now we see how easily we get to where our parents were 

When they tried to impact on us the brevity of here-to-there 

While we were busy being much the way that young people still are 

So sure, that time is on their side and getting old is far, so far 

Aha, aha, we say as we see time its timeless truths unfold 

Where we cannot divert the flux bent on turning young people old 

But bear in mind that to be kind is always age-appropriate 

And we are not at the mercy of time but of He who authors it

We see now how we ought to make the most of each and every age 

Where, no matter how old we are change always strives for center stage 

Thus, keeping us astonished by Time’s polished howdy-do and bow 

As it keeps on delivering the aha, of what we see now 

© Janet Martin 

sometimes it feels as if Jim and I turned old-er like this...

He sends me pictures...

as well as he often calls while rolling down the highway.

He is a much better conversationalist than I, so thanks to him

we communicate a lot in spite of miles between!

Happy New Year!!

Let's not look back too long

Or look ahead too far

For we might miss The Very This

Of right here, where we are!

May The Good Lord Bless and Keep You 

Jim Reeves

 

Numbers 6:24-26

“The Lord bless you

and keep you;

 the Lord make his face shine on you

and be gracious to you;

 the Lord turn his face toward you

and give you peace.”’

Take Time

Who, at the Hinge of Old Year's end to New Year's start doesn't not contemplate Time?

Farewell, Old Year.

...you do not know what tomorrow will bring. 

What is your life? 

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:14

How will we spend time's coins?

What will we have to show for it;

this mist that appears for a little while,

these days of grass?

1 Peter 1:24-25

For, 

All people are like grass,

and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;

the grass withers and the flowers fall,

25but the word of the Lord endures forever.” c

And this is the word that was preached to you.

Take time; this thing that transports us from cradle to the silent grave 

It wears the cares and noisy fuss of we abreast its teeming wave 

its momentum of moments metes morn’s virgin streets to you and I 

And gathers as it grants, the fetes that compose Past’s collective sigh 

Take time; Soul’s Sacred Rubicon whereon there is no turning back 

Where the first breath sets us upon an all-important, one-way track 

Where present-sprees and centuries are not so very far apart 

And everybody ought to seize what each dawn frees, with awestruck heart 

Take time to contemplate the Gate that waits to swing but once, for all 

Where nothing else can compensate when it comes to the Gospel Call 

And no one can afford to scoff and cater to indifference 

When it comes to the subject of Offering and Deliverance 

Take time to get down on your knees and make peace with the God of grace 

For who knows when this life will cease and we will meet Him face to face 

Where those who believe will receive faith’s glorious inheritance 

But those who rejected God’s pleas, to suffer Choice’s consequence 

Take time; its transitory isle nobody outsmarts or outlives 

Our mist appears a little while then vanishes to He who gives 

And what would be the point of it, but for the opportunity 

Of a lifetime, to inherit what everyone must wait to see 

© Janet Martin 

I heard a minister make the comment that 

if everyone while on earth was given but a glimpse of either Heaven or hell,

hell would be empty; so awesome Heaven, so awful hell

Before this year ends, if you have not done so,

 please do not put off what tomorrow does not promise to give;

opportunity to make your peace with God

and receive the gift of eternal life

as you repent and believe.

John 3:16

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins

 and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It Is No Secret What God Can Do

(It's powerful to listen to the words of this song as if it is written

for each of us, personally!)

Catch Me If You Can

Away, away, ebbs break of day 

Dawn’s newest nuance flows 

Its height of bloom soon wooed away 

Like petals from a rose 

How soon, how soon the afternoon 

Folds up its gleaming fan 

And fills the shadows with a tune 

Of catch-me-if-you-can 

A-tsk, a-tsk, the brooding dusk 

Is like a clucking hen 

She spreads her wings over her chicks 

And draws them home again 

© Janet Martin 

 

With Fresh Surprise

 

Where green had been,

White stucco sweeps...

...roll out to meet dark denim deeps

Where we, caught on the tides of change 

Gape at what nothing can estrange 

Like moonrise on dusky skies, pinned

Where green had been, white stucco sweeps 

Roll out to meet dark denim deeps 

The resting earth is kissed and tucked 

Beneath the heavens, sparkle-shucked 

Where we, caught on the tides of change 

Gape at what nothing can estrange 

Like moonrise on dusky skies, pinned 

As long and blue shadow-flues thinned 

Until the hand that none can stay 

Brushes the pretty world away 

And we are left peering into 

The cleft that centuries ran through 

Where, for a bit we own the eyes 

That gaze at it with fresh surprise 

© Janet Martin 

Psalm 39:4-6

4“Lord, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
5Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah
6Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they [b]busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them.

Height of Perfection

 

There is

a point

in life

when we

become

so

very

small

When we

with

humble

wonderment

at last

are

thank-you

tall

 

© Janet Martin