Monday, January 4, 2021

Of Circumstance and Mercy-Grants...

 His Mercy Is More



Isa.63:7

I will tell of the LORD's unfailing love. 
I will praise the LORD for all he has done. 
I will rejoice in his great goodness to Israel, 
which he has granted according to his mercy and love.


Life could overload love with care 
And drain us of the strength to bear 
What circumstance and mercy grants 
To test the purpose of the prayer 

Life could rob us of happiness 
That only joy and peace possess 
Where only trust in Mercy’s Must 
Achieves its holy hopefulness 

Life could distract us from the goal 
With that which wraps around the Soul 
When we forget Mercy’s paid debt 
and the Yet, after Time’s brief toll 

Life could trick us into despair 
When lies, disguised as loving care 
Are calloused to Mercy’s kind Who 
Delivers us from evil’s snare 

Life could feel like a futile chase 
The future too fearful to face 
Without belief in Mercy’s Chief 
The One True God of love and grace 

Life would do all of this without
One greater than the weight of doubt
He broke sin's chains through Mercy's pains
To prove the love life is about

So life is more than load of care
That would drain us of strength to bear
What circumstance and Mercy grants
Through perfect Love beyond compare

© Janet Martin 


Sum of Influence

 

My mother gave all of her siblings and children a 'book' binder for Christmas;
a story she has been writing for over a decade that began
the day she was born and shared in her words some of her life
up until her marriage to my dad!
As I read it I marveled over and over what a lovely, wonderful mother we had
long before she was a mother!
(this, I am sure was not her reason for writing the book)
this is my observation as she shares some of the memories 
and lessons she documented over the years
and put in a book as a memento for future generations, to peek into the past
and help us appreciate the pieces of lives that have helped to shape our own!




My mom and dad were such faithful
(not perfect, but faithful) examples of faith
and the older we get the more we value the priceless gift
our childhoods were and the foundation they laid for our
own journeys of faith for this life. 

Life can evoke a sense of sacred threads placed into our hands
that only by God's grace and through His Word  
can we weave them into something of value
for future generations to cling to!

Our grandson turns four today!
The next generation is wasting no time in growing up too fast!
From this...



...to this in the twinkle of an eye

(and a few groans😉)
He is quite a character!!




How manifold the pieces of 
what makes our life and shapes our love 
How hidden are so many parts 
of other people’s hopes and hearts 
that ever-deftly intertwine 
the tendrils of the family vine 
to weave with circumstance and choice 
the mentor of tomorrow’s voice 
as influence unfolds its sum 
in generations yet to come 

© Janet Martin 



Reason or Wonder Origami

There comes a point in one's 'travels'
or wet-snow-laden-ski-clump-clump
where we eventually put the camera away and simply wonder/worship.
But I did get some snow-mementos before doing so!




Took to the slopes for a while yesterday, 
well, maybe slopes is a bit exaggerated but hills and dells isn't😀
and I stood in the *illusion of 'the middle of nowhere' (I could still hear cars)
and sang How Great Thou Art at the top of my lusty rusty range to
the only One who could possibly hear me 
because beauty such as fresh snowfall 
will woo one to do such things!








Each hill and rill and dell and frond 
And crook and nook and brook and pond 
And lingering leaf and laud-less limb 
Manifests and showcases Him 

How glorious, the cloth unfurled 
To gild and cloak the naked world 
No dowdy rags to drape earth’s bars 
But a cape of sequins and stars 

How manifold and wonder-wild 
The world extols the day God smiled 
And flung into eternity 
Creation’s sacred ‘let there be’ 

How beautiful God’s perfect plan 
Where we have ruined all we can 
While His supreme authority 
Safeguards creation’s majesty 

Where bud and seed heed the design 
That breeds the tendrils of the vine 
And feeds the creatures in the care 
Of He who tends time’s thoroughfare 

And bends the bough that bears the fruit 
And grants the offspring to the root 
And fills each season with fresh ways 
To fold Reason to humble praise 

© Janet Martin 

*my sister wrote in a Christmas letter 
how one Sunday in autumn they hiked along the river and old railway 
until "it certainly felt like the middle of nowhere but
the sound of distant traffic reminded her that it was but an illusion"

How often if we rely on 'feeling'
do we become disillusioned!
Better to rely on what we know, not see!

Psalm 90:2
Before the mountains were born 
or you brought forth the whole world, 
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Here is a one of my favourite versions of
one of my favourite hymns!














Sunday, January 3, 2021

And the Winner Is...Love!

How Deep The Father's Love For Us-Selah 


  

A Few more Love-Hymns...




It would kill joy; All the anger, 
Criticism, blame’s push-shove 
Prejudiced assumptions, 
Judgments, Finger- 
pointing 
But for 
Love 


It would kill cheer; hostile slander, 
Slights of love misunderstood 
It would get the best 
Of wonder but for 
this; God 
is still 
good 


It would kill peace; pride’s cold 
shoulder, Spite’s insensitivity. 
but for this; these are no 
match for God’s love 
poured through 
You and 
me 

© Janet Martin 


“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 
Even sinners love those who love them. 
33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? 
Even sinners do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, 
what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.
 35But love your enemies, do good to them, 
and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. 
Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, 
because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Saturday, January 2, 2021

On Invisible Detonations

 


It's only for a few months, he reminds me 
sensing the brave face I was putting up
as I watched him pack to move out for a few months...

Arms never could hold heart-pieces in place 
Bravado buckles in spite of intent 
It is impossible to embrace 
All that we longed for after it is spent 

Love never did promise Easy Street 
Though sometimes I kinda wish that it would 
They say the bitter makes better the sweet 
Later came sooner than I thought it could 

You want a hug? He asks bashfully 
I try to keep a brave smile on my face 
But oh, my old heart gets the best of me 
Arms never could hold heart-pieces in place 

© Janet Martin 



 


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







Friday, January 1, 2021

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



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