Love IS

 

Love is a flower garden in a bower full of snow...

Love is God's beaming banner of daybreak and grace unfurled

Love is a hand that finds a hand when it’s too dark to see 

Love is a candle in the window of the ageless soul 

Love is a shared umbrella, picture-book or cup of tea 

Love is a kind reminder of God, who is in control 

Love is a flower garden in a bower full of snow 

Love is the jewel in the common crown of day-to-day 

Love is the tender duel between hold and letting go 

Love is humble surrender to trust God, come what yet may 

Love is a second-mile on feet that have seen better years 

Love is a hearty handshake, hug, blooms on a windowsill 

Love is a mother’s faithful prayer, the wellspring of her tears 

Love is a Father watching over children of free will 

Love is anything given without thought of recompense 

Love is the smallest kindness in a big, crude, clumsy world 

Love is a leap of faith that disregards fear’s phantom fence 

Love is God’s beaming banner of daybreak and grace unfurled 

Love in an invitation to be willing to be wrong 

Love is a celebration of small words like ‘us’ and ‘we’ 

Love is the recognition of bigger words like ‘belong’ 

Love is a purposed vision because God loves you and me 

Love is the time it takes to make a fellow-fellow hope 

Love is the eyes to prize each day God lends to our touch 

Love is the age-old gold that melts the gray from heart or slope 

Love IS; the proof of God in a world that needs Him so much 

© Janet Martin 

Love is the age-old gold that melts the gray from heart and slope...

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love one another deeply, 

because love covers over a multitude of sins.

A Word of Caution and Encouragement

 There Is Rest By and By

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! 

You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cumin. 

But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--

justice, mercy and faithfulness. 

You should have practiced the latter, 

without neglecting the former.

Matt.23:23

The effects of Covid-19 to the body of Christ 

has been a sobering eye-opener😢💔

Oh, let's not get caught in neglecting

the more important matters of the Law!

Our young pastor on Sunday morning (min.5-7) ;click Sunday Service Jan.3,2021,

cautioned us with a kind reminder; 

that at the heart of all our differing and varying opinions

 (obvious by all the denominations of Christian faith)

 at the heart of the true believer in each individual

 is an honest desire to follow Jesus.

Then, at this time of deep conflicting opinion this is SO vital to remember.

Let's be peace-keepers!

Let's fold pointing fingers into humble, earnest prayer for love and wisdom.

(these woes below came about as I looked in the mirror... of His Word. Ouch)

Woe to we, who will dare to stab a brother in the back 

And prove without a doubt that it is true love that we lack 

Woe to we called to be bearers of one another’s care 

But publicize opinion rather than resort to prayer 

Woe to we who speak ‘piece of minds’ without all facts in place 

Proving once more that everybody’s greatest need is grace 

Woe to we, human-nature bent, where verbal push and shove 

Will justify excuses with the opposite of love 

Woe to we who are quick to speculative prejudice 

Thus, making a mockery of said-robes of righteousness 

But God bless we who strive to be with kind humility 

Examples of the greatest love for all the world to see 

So, when love’s perfect work is wrought, a few will yet remain 

To prove the message that Christ taught was not offered/authored in vain 

© Janet Martin 

John 4:23

Yet a time is coming and has now come 

when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, 

for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

Gal.6:2

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Today's Daily Bread Devotion contains a kind reminder

of the sweetening work of  Time/Experience in the

life of a believer and fruits of the Spirit.

Seasoned Scene Sonnet

Isa.45:5-6&12 

(click link to read the whole powerful chapter)

I am the Lord, and there is no other;

apart from me there is no God.

I will strengthen you,

though you have not acknowledged me,

so that from the rising of the sun

to the place of its setting

people may know there is none besides me.

I am the Lord, and there is no other...

It is I who made the earth

and created mankind on it.

My own hands stretched out the heavens;

I marshaled their starry hosts.

The morning melts the dark, the heavens spawn 

Dawn’s ever-ebbing shadows from the air 

Unrolling, like a bolt of blush chiffon 

Gilt gossamer that tumbles through our stare 

Unveiling labour, love and longing’s stage 

Where scenes change with each season’s ordered rite 

While overhead the heavens never age 

But mark the night and day with dark and light 

To leave its imprint not in stars, but hearts 

A script composed of constant no return

As ways and means of circumstance imparts 

An ever-startling scope of more-to-learn 

Hope, like a bud that still withholds the rose 

Keeps us caught between knees and tippy-toes 

© Janet Martin

Forever-Chris Tomlin

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!

How Great Thou Art

And the Winner Is...Love!

How Deep The Father's Love For Us-Selah 

  

A Few more Love-Hymns...

Ascend the Hill- O, Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling 

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 

Luke 6: 32-36 NIV

“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.

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