How To Know What Love Is...

Pad(poem-a-day) Challenge day 13:For today's prompt, write a How to blank poem

1 John 3:16-20

This is how we know what love is: 

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

 And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 

17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need

 but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 

18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth 

and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 

20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, 

and he knows everything.

My Savior's Love- How Marvelous, How Wonderful

(version 1)

I Will Sing the Wondrous Story

When through ancient age/page we travel

When our hearts are wholly gripped

As we trace and humbly marvel

And embrace redemption’s script

As the grace that wrought salvation

Stuns us with love’s magnitude

Mercy’s divine transformation

Turns despair to gratitude

Draws the heart, no longer hardened

(Though this world with horrors groans)

To the cross where sin is pardoned

To the One whose death atones

All who come without excuses

All who repent and believe

Not one sinner, He refuses

His forgiveness to receive

Look! Behold Hope’s holy horror

At Love’s body, bathed in blood

At the Healer’s Hands, nail-burrowed

From Him spews redemption’s flood

Hark! He cries, by all forsaken

Behold! Now He bows His head

Look! He dies, the skies are shaken

As the graves give up their dead

But Death was a fated rival

I AM no grave could constrain

Jesus Christ arose triumphal

Over sin and death; amen

This is how we know what love is

Jesus Christ laid down his life

Love does not forget its promise

Wrought through Heaven's sacrifice

This is joy; to be forgiven

Love's broken body, life’s bread

Where, still through all earth from Heaven

Runs redemption’s scarlet thread

This is hope’s unflinching anchor

Though time’s troubled tempests roll

Hallelujah what a Savior

This is faith that makes us whole

Hallelujah, what a Savior

Jesus, Savior of the soul

© Janet Martin

But By The Grace of God (til death doth part)

Poem-a-day challenge day 12:write a counting poem and/or not counting poem.

Not counting all the times, we didn’t see quite eye to eye

When your druthers and mine were like December meets July

When opposites that once seemed so attractive start to irk

As we reevaluate what it takes to make ‘us’ work

Not counting all the days when love's 'tone' was misunderstood

And we did not respond in ways like two grown adults should

When we behaved like rivals rather than husband and wife

I’d say we are exceptional at rocking married life

Not counting all the rules that unschooled mid-life love ignores

Until our tempers cool, no longer fooled by lion-roars/'winning' scores

I’d say in spite of all the times we bite instead of kiss

That you and I are prime examples of sweet, wedded bliss

I hope that life becomes a 'losing track of years' because

Of moment-thrum's momentous sums; the love-story of 'us'

Where, in spite of those times we blush some sad excuse to fend

We'll look back on a life of 'us'; love, faithful to the end

© Janet Martin

April Aria

Poem-a-day challenge day 12:write a counting poem and/or not counting poem.

Thy fronds that spill in daffodil...

Last year the daffodils were in full bloom...

this year's much cooler April has mustered a few brave shoots

thy ponds, a turquoise jewel

Ah, let me count the ways I love thee, April afternoon

Thy undulating clouds above me, earth's bestirring boon...

(Sunday afternoon showcased a strange ring around the sun)

Ah, let me count the ways I love thee, April afternoon

Thy undulating clouds above me, earth's bestirring boon

Where bulb and bud and muddy garden fuel flower-dreams

With autographs of winter's pardon bursting at thy seams

Goldfinch, a dapper fellow in his new yellow physique 

Thy warmer windsong tuning willow-cellos by the creek

And laughter, glorious laughter after winter wends away 

Ripples to heaven's rafter with a happy hip-hooray

Thy blue and bronze, thy timid green, thy moody ebb and flow

Like love, when it is torn between holding and letting go 

Like life, where though sunshine is sweet a little rain must fall

Like ten-thousand tap-dancer's feet at earth's coming-out ball 

Thy newborn lamb, thy cooing dove, thy wooing wink and grin 

Ah, let me count the ways I love the way you kiss my skin

And let me leave my sweater on the chair beside my book

While you and I together wander by the winding brook 

...to look for mint and marigold emerging in the silt 

To watch Mother Nature unfold earth's blanket like a quilt

To listen to the swishing of her brisk and busy broom

Teasing the people fishing beneath thy leaf-threaded loom

Ah, let me count the ways that thrill; thy temp'ramental duel  

Thy fronds that spill in daffodil, thy ponds, a turquoise jewel

Thy orchestras that trill and fill dawn's dark with joy renewed

The way you stay the course until winter's chill is subdued

 

Thy sense of baited breath before the curtain-rise; the cheers

That thunder where we waited; from death's guise life reappears 

Thy mission undeterred by Old Man Winter's farewell flings

I love the way the heart is stirred; hope sings and sings and sings 

   © Janet Martin

Poem-Power

 Todays poem-a-day challenge is to write a power poem...

I would be remiss to ignore this; Poem Power💖

I bemoaned the fact the other day that I have more poem books

full of breath-taking poetry than I have life left to read them all,

(unless that was all I did) 

which would leave too many other beautiful loves unattended to💗💖💕

I'm reveling in Edith Holden's beautiful books these days...

A true treasure chest of art, prose and poetry!

Poem-power

It plants a pretty garden where a blank page used to be

A bit of unkempt ink can tango with a memory

And turn what would be nothing but a thought into an ache

That turns into a poem that turns into a keepsake

Its seeps through creases where other ink pieces do not fit

It turns a body inside out yet doesn’t show a bit

It sparkles like a diamond on the backdrop of a sigh

A patchwork quilt of afternoons that dangle from the sky

A poem moans like breakers on the shoreline of the heart

It gathers scattered shells and melds them into works of art

A wisp of you and I entwined through twist and tug of rhyme

Becomes a token that withstands unspoken tests of time

The power of a poem wields a wild and wondrous force

Of cheek to cheek slow-dancing, of love’s touchless intercourse

Where centuries and worlds apart still kindred spirits meet

To trace the fault-lines of a heart with kisses bittersweet

It sweeps soft as a feather across paper ballroom floors

A tender ink-stained tether woven by lost troubadours

Who set the stage for we who race to chase through far-flung gates

A lure tossed into pure unsullied deeps of what yet waits

A poem-memento is unlike any other prize

It scales the heights of passion for the freefall of goodbyes

It flirts with hurt if but to taste the salty sting of years

In wounds beneath the skin that Poem washes with its tears

© Janet Martin

a few more poem treasure-trunks

This Is Love's Power and Glory

Todays poem-a-day challenge is to write a power poem...

To the Christian the power of God;

 His Word that in the beginning created the heavens and the earth,

His love that brought salvation to the world,

His Son who suffered our sin's penalty,

 are first thoughts that come to mind when hearing the word 'power'!

Rom.1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, 

because it is the power of God 

that brings salvation to everyone who believes: 

first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

There is Power in the Blood-Alan Jackson

The Power of the Cross-Keith and Kristyn Getty

Death could not subjugate Life Everlasting

Hatred could never be greater than love

The empty cross was hope’s graphic forecasting

Christ shed the grave like a linen glove

‘"Tetelestai!" "It is finished!" Love’s story

Nothing can thwart; the tomb’s stone could not stay

‘Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory

Forever.' Nothing can take it away

No one can nullify the sinner’s pardon

No one the King of kings can overthrow

After the battle of wills in The Garden

Christ, through submission vanquished hope’s dark foe

Redemption’s scarlet flood flows through the ages

Nothing can abrogate Atonement’s Gift

Though scorn is violent and hate, tenacious

Hope is an anchor that nothing can shift

Though wars unfold horrors, brutal and gory

These are the fulfilling of prophecy

Before the King of Kings appears in glory

To dispel evil in a fiery sea

Death, is the shadow that each breath is casting

Death, though it seems to have the final word

To those whose hope is in Life Everlasting

Know God’s love and justice is undeterred

Love’s hands, through which hatred’s daggers were driven

Love’s brow thorn-torn; Love’s body crucified

Love’s blood, the flood whereby sins are forgiven

This is the love that stripped death of its pride

This is love’s power and glory we honour

Name above all names, Love, mighty to save

This is the power above any other

This is the glory that shatters the grave

Death cannot subjugate Life Everlasting

Hatred will never be greater than love

The empty cross is hope’s symbol, forecasting

Graves that will be shed like a linen glove

© Janet Martin

Road to Glory...

'For me, my identity isn't a golf score'

"God made me good at golf and

I want to glorify him with this gift"

Scottie Scheffler

“God is in control and the Lord is leading me, 

and if today is my time, then it’s my time, 

and if I shot 82 today, somehow I was going to use it for His glory."

Scottie Scheffler-Masters winner 2022

a few favorite moments...(proud wife)

...and caddy

savoring the sweetness of the moment 

and the support of many fans and family

In the writer's digest poem-a-day challenge

Yesterday's Prompt was write a taste poem

Today's prompt, is write a power poem.

This poem could be entitled 

The Power of Perseverance or

The Sweet Taste of Success

This poem could be about a private, personal challenge or

The fight to faith's finish-line!

So I settled on the title 

Road to Glory

Because the glorious sweetness of success's trophy always casts a shadow;

the bitter cup of dreams dashed (for now)

Cameron Smith acknowledges appreciative applause from fans

after a disappointing finish...

This poem was written with him in mind as well

as well as all of us who

have tasted, in varying degrees, 

the bitter draught of disappointment!

The pleasing flavours/favours of success

Somehow become more sweet

When hope’s hurdles to happiness

Have been honed by defeat

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose

Life’s course of ups and downs

Refines endurance with its dues

Of crosses before crowns

The hard knocks of ‘not yet’ beget

If we do not give up

After the challenge has been met

The sweetest victor’s cup

Defeat is not the finished fight

But just a stepping-stone

To test the mettle of the might

Of more than skin and bone

Sometimes what at first glance may seem

Like failure and regret

Is but the beauty of a dream

Not quite accomplished yet

Then keep the faith; this is the rite

Before we realize

Where what once seemed a bitter fight

Was sweetening the Prize

© Janet Martin

Shout out to Corey Connors (a former local)

 from proud Canadian fans!

Eric Liddell, when being reprimanded by his sister 

for neglecting his responsibilities before God 

as he devoted his focus toward competitive running, responded,

 “I believe that God made me for a purpose. 

But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure .”

In whatever form it takes

May we all 'run' to feel God's pleasure!

So someday we may exclaim triumphantly

2 Tim.4:7-8

I have fought a good fight,

I have finished my course, 

I have kept the faith:

 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 

which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day:

 and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Until Nature's Silence Breaks...

April poem-a-day challenge day 9:

For today's prompt, write a breaking poem.

While we wait to go from this...

to this...

...and this!

Tulip, daisy, daffodil

Long before they bloom

Stoke anticipation’s thrill

As spring threads earth’s loom

Pansy, poppy, peony

Lupine, columbine

Lilac, orchard’s blossom tree

Wisteria vine

Woodlands wait; a silhouette

Somber purple-gray

Where the bud, not broken yet

Cradles spring’s hooray

Bronze, the bristled creekbank gleams

Like a vault that holds

Gush of blue flag-iris-streams

Plush marsh-marigolds

Expectation escalates

Hope ignites in sighs

Everybody crowds barred gates

Eager for earth’s prize

...until nature's silence breaks

And bud-belfies ring

Waiting tunes want's tender aches

With love songs for spring

While yon welkin coffers brim

With grim pelting pearls

While a wooing, wailing hymn

Dashes, drips and swirls

While a trusty glockenspiel

Winnows down the hours

Until Someone breaks the seal

And earth sings in flow’rs

© Janet Martin

Once Upon Youth I Tricked The Truth...

PAD Challenge day 8: For today's prompt, write a what they never tell you poem.

Echoes run deep

Wild oats aren't cheap

Beware of clocks that feast on rhyme

Youth's eloquence

A vain defense

Against the hands of Father Time

Reflections of

Spent live-learn-love

Can serve up quite a picture show

Sometimes the dark

Just needs a spark

To teach us things we didn't know

A book, a hill

A windowsill

Expands four-season points of view

No one can steal

The way I feel

After an afternoon with you 

Discovery 

Will always be

Life's bitterest, sweetest surprise

The greatest death

While we have breath

Is life, after love's laughter dies

...and, sure success 

To happiness

Will be impossible until

We realize

To our surprise

It is a selfless miracle

Once upon youth

I tricked the truth

Or so I airily supposed

Until I found

It safe and sound

Unfazed by ways it is exposed

I have been told

That growing old

Is not for the faint or the weak

But they left out

The part about

How soon I'd learn of what they speak

© Janet Martin