Of Side and Ripple Effects (of sin)

Mark 14:38

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Phil.2:12-13

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed,

not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

13for it is God who works in you

both to will and to do for His good pleasure./purpose

Sometimes I am stunned breathless

at the awesome responsibility 

resting on the shoulders of we who are

training the next generation...

As a parent, grandparent, 

as a child caregiver,

or teacher,

or Sunday School teacher.

Youngsters so beautiful,

 so precious,

 so smart, 

and so innocent

are trusting us!

May God give us grace and truth!

This past Sunday our lesson was about Samson, teaching us that

Samson is just one of many people in

the Bible who failed to obey God perfectly.

 But God still uses sinners in His plan

 to share His love with the world. 

Jesus forgives our sin. 

We can be part of God’s story to share the good

news of Jesus with others.

As we chatted about the story I told them I am glad when I sin

God forgives me and can still use me for his purpose and glory...

Before I had quite completed the sentence one little girl gasped

in horror, 'What?! she said, 'you are glad when you sin?!!"

So, I made sure they all heard the rest of the sentence.

Imagine the confusion if a class of little girls when asked what they learned

would report that the teacher said she is glad when she sins...lol!

So to clarify...I am sad when I sin but it really got me to thinking about whether

I am sad enough and quite as on guard as I should be.

Am I a teacher of truth or half-truths?

Sometimes I am agonizingly awed

by the craftiness of sin.

Always, always I need God's love/Word to show me the way.

Always, always I need his grace to forgive me and whisper 

"ups-a-daisy, dear. Try, try again,

for I will never leave you or forsake you"

This poem is a bit of battleground thought-blood...

The side and the ripple effects of disregarded sin

Seeps like a deadly venom, vile, and veiled by guile’s smooth skin

For, though we repent and receive redemption’s gift of grace

We do not instantly achieve the triumph of life’s race

But only then begin the fight that Satan delights in

To blemish the believer’s light with cunning ploys of sin

Alliances of evil would be too awful to bear

Temptation’s vexing vices oft would drive us to despair

Without the faithfulness of God whose armor will not fail

If we cling to His staff and rod, His pleasure/purpose will prevail

Then praise Him for the battle lest we slip to apathy

And wink because we think we have conquered the enemy

If we confess our sin, God, rich in mercy will forgive

The fight that we are in continues as long as we live

For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light

The master of deception clothes dark evil in pure white

The father of lies plays the charmer while his army lurks

To find chinks in faith’s armor and further destruction’s works

Diligence and enticement spar on battlegrounds within

Because God’s precious people are prized prey for schemes of sin

We ought to give most earnest heed to warnings we have heard

And with hunger for righteousness feed on God’s Holy Word

Because side and ripple effects of pride and selfishness

Can set a snare that twists the truth into ungodliness

Sometimes the stumbling blocks of sin may seem harmless and small

Until life’s testing storms begin, how mighty then, the fall

Where sin’s side and ripple effects employ a subtle tone

To soothe away the sacred void of The Chief Cornerstone

Until the side and ripple effects of sin cuts the cord

To holiest awareness of reckoning and reward

© Janet Martin

Songs like this cheer me on...

I hope they do you as well!

How Can I Keep From Singing- Audrey Assad

May Morning Melody

Psalm 62:5-8

Yes, my soul, find rest in God;

my hope comes from him.

6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

7 My salvation and my honor depend on God[c];

he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

8 Trust in him at all times, you people;

pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our refuge.

Earth's table trembles 

with glimmers

of May's magical 

bloom-buffet...

With love’s mercies kindly given

And love’s mercies still to come

Pray we may be humbly driven

To He who our help/hope is from

We will never be forsaken

By the One who grants life’s worth

By He whose pure whispers waken

Nature’s plumes to clothe the earth

While time’s bubble full of trouble

Groans with mortal’s menial woe

Midst its mayhem and its rubble

By the grace of God we go

By the grace that authors flowers

By the grace that hears our plea

What a wondrous grace is ours

Grace that sets death’s captive free

In spite of calloused rejection

And the naïve wants we prize

Grace bends earth with birth’s redemption

And the darkness with sunrise

Threads the loom of breathless bowers

With summer’s glad symphonies

Hark! The limb grace strummed with showers

Bursts into a hymn of leaves

Bursts into a newborn garden

Bursts into first green and gold

Bursts into the perfect pardon

Of spring after winter’s cold

With such mercies kindly given

And such mercies still to come

Pray we may be humbly driven

To He who our help/hope is from

© Janet Martin

Psalm 121:1-2

...where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

How Do I Love Thee, (Once upon Sweet Childhood's Girl or Boy)

(a rather sentimental undoing of a mother's heart

as she contemplates a mother's love for grown children 💝)

Birthdays have a way of doing that...

Happy 24th birthday, Matt!

How do I love thee, once upon sweet childhood’s girl or boy?

I love thee with a brutal grief and with a daring joy

I love thee like a gentle lamb yet with a lion’s roar

It seems like every day I love you like never before

How do I love thee? In a tender tumult borne within

My dear, you cannot guess the world unfurled beneath my skin

Or how a mother holds her babies close in spite of years

How love is like a medley of hugs, tugs, cheers, fears and tears

How do I love thee? With compassion’s firm and fierce regard

Because I know though love is sweet, love is grueling and hard

A holy weathering that cannot be estranged by miles

A prayer-worn tethering through sorrow-storms and sunshine-smiles

How do I love thee? like a dancer still learning the steps

A hold and letting go that Season-change cannot eclipse

With sympathy and hope and honor all rolled into one

I love thee like only a mother loves daughter or son

How do I love thee? with oft stumble-humbled gratitude

With by-the-grace-of-God whose kindness keeps courage renewed

With error-riddled aftermath and laughter’s grand release

With awe, while God is teaching me what makes a masterpiece 

From mom aka

© Janet Martin

Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

A Word to Poets (and People In General... )

Whoosh! and another week/month bites the dust!

Farewell April Showers and blizzards!

On a bright note, farm-dust is starting to fly in some areas!

Oh, isn't that wonderful?!!

Even if it smells like manure?!😅

Wishing one and all a weekend full of wonder!

Psalm 69:30
I will praise God's name in song and exalt Him with thanksgiving.

Sometimes what means the most in love and life’s strife and lament

Are simple things; a smile, a word of kind encouragement

A grumble never uttered, and an insult never said

Instead of discontent, a compliment, a prayer-bowed head

Sometimes what we need most where heartache’s bitter brunt must be

Where troubles test and dreams are vexed with stiff reality

Are not poetic platitudes or eloquent cliches

But just a hug to tug at heart-strings full of knots and frays

Sometimes what matters most to give is not nickel-and-dime

But the often apology-defended gift of time

Where what we need is not the creed of some best-seller book

But rather the less stressful counsel of a babbling brook

What waits to be will wait to be; enough with now and here

Where moments fall like stars or like the sparkle of a tear

Where you and I in love and life’s commitments of lament

Should strive to give what we all need; time and encouragement

Sometimes workaday weariness can wear our wonder thin

And holes into the soles of shoes somewhere beneath our skin

Sometimes life’s need and noise pleads us to fold want’s weathered wings

And count life’s wealth of simple joys until we feel like kings

Sometimes poetry snared in script is not equipped with ears 

Sometimes a rhyme takes too much time and ink and paper gears 

Sometimes what means the most is not something that prose defines  

But someone who is close enough to read between the lines

💔💞

© Janet Martin

Psalm 34:3

Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

Little Life-Ladder

Psalm 143:8

Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning,

for I have put my trust in You.

Teach me the way I should walk, 

for to You I lift up my soul.

I have a few friends going through terribly difficult seasons!

Whether we are in the valley of the shadow of death

or enjoying a view from the heights of success

we are where we are by the grace of God

on our way to beholding Him!

I wish I had a picture of Tot yesterday,

standing at the bottom of this ladder

and looking up, up as if wondering

to what wonderland it leads...

 I identified with the wee one, as I too sometimes

look up, up beyond the Meanwhile...

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms- David Crowder

Through the thick and thin of laughter

‘Neath the rise and set of sun

Before turns to ever-after

Gold and gray mingle as one

In the grin and groan of earning

Wisdom’s wonder-wizened crown

We will never outgrow learning

Till we lay these bodies down

Where ways once keener/greener and younger

Kisses faces with lost youth

We, honed by hope’s sacred hunger

Cling all the more to God’s truth

Not forgotten, not forsaken

As He draws us to the shore

Where death’s sleep is but to waken

In His Presence evermore

Through the highs and lows of living

Flows the wellspring of Enough

Where God, gracious and forgiving

Lavishes us with His love

In the hearing and the calling

Until death collects its claim

We are climbing and yet falling

Up, yet back from whence we came

In the valley of death's shadow

Or on heights of sweet success

Life is like a little ladder

Leaning on/leading to Eternalness  

 

© Janet Martin

Oh, imagine if we had the visual of our little life-ladder

(wherever we happen to be in time's climb),

 leaning against Eternity

held by He who is from Everlasting to Everlasting!

Psalm 116:5

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;

Yes, our God is compassionate.

A Spring Song

This morning's sunbeams

after yesterday's snowfall

sets spring songs a-ringing!

(in bird and bard!)

The sparkle of frost-brickle

The finch in golden plume

*(or the finch-tree in full plume)

The twinkle in Father Time’s grin

As earth trembles with bloom

Good morning’s hearty handshake

The sky, a big blue bowl

Tipped upside down to grandly crown

The laughter of the soul

The giggle of the garden

The robin’s tiralee

Green sheen unfurled across a world

Wild with expectancy

Where we attuned to anthems

Not written in a book

Join in the hymn of throbbing limb

And chuckle of the brook

How long we wished and waited

For daffodils to glow

For violet stars to deck the bars

Long kissed with flecks of snow

Come, let’s dance on the tarmac

No longer brown and gray

And celebrate the welkin gate

Where winter lost its way (hopefully)😑

© Janet Martin

The sparkle of frost-brickle...

*The finch-tree in full plume/bloom

Good morning’s hearty handshake

The sky, a big blue bowl

Tipped upside down to grandly crown

The laughter of the soul...

How long we wished and waited

For daffodils to glow

...in the words from my two-yr.-old little gal in my childcare-

'I saw dappydils!'

For violet stars to deck the bars

Long kissed with flecks of snow...

The giggle of the garden

The robin’s tiralee

Green sheen unfurled across a world

Wild with expectancy...

Already Overflowing

But the fruit of the Spirit is 

love, joy, peace, 

forbearance, kindness, goodness, 

faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

Against such things there is no law.

Gal.5:22-23

Whether ambassadors for Christ or not,

we all prefer being treated with

and surrounded by the fruits of the Spirit

named above,

rather than its opposing counterparts;

hate, misery, worry/war,

impatience, hardness, corruption

disloyalty/dishonesty, violence and rashness

When we view life in light of all the Lord

offers, provides and has provided

our hearts can't help but overflow with humble gratitude

for his everlasting love and faithfulness!

(Sometimes these poems are written to re-remind

my own floundering, susceptible-to-fear faith,

 of God's goodness

so I keep my eyes fixed on a Prize

 beyond all comprehension

and my heart overflowing with worship rather than worry!

Ps.45:1 NKJV

My heart is overflowing with a good theme;
I recite my composition concerning the King;
My tongue is the pen of a [c]ready writer.

Already overflowing, though cares of life persist

We serve a God all-knowing who sees through morrow’s mist

This constant consolation with His redeeming grace

Attends the restoration where dread could take hope’s place

Through Mercy’s kind bestowing, the heart becomes a sea

Of wonder overflowing shores of eternity

He within us is greater; thus, the heart overflows

To know that our Creator, no power overthrows

No army can defeat Him, no threat can thwart His plan

Therefore, we ought to fear Him rather than schemes of man

And cling with grateful knowing to He who loves us so

His goodness overflowing this world of want and woe

Let us reason together; if God is for us then

His mercy is the tether His kindness metes; amen

His riches are exceeding; how sweet the Spirit’s fruit

(Earth’s storehouses are fleeting; corruption taints its loot)

Sin’s debt paid; nothing owing! The heart is rent with hymns

Already overflowing where thankful worship brims

Already overflowing; the glory of His grace

Like heaven’s halo glowing through tears God’s fingers trace

Where we are undergoing the growing pains of trust

While mercy is bestowing breath-by-breath dust-to-dust

Until, with nothing owing the heart becomes the soul

Already overflowing with faith at last made whole

© Janet Martin

2 Cor.5:20

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, 

as though God were pleading through us: 

we implore you on Christ’s behalf, 

be reconciled to God.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing 

Faithful to the End

 

I am still enjoying a beautiful bouquet given to me a week ago 

after helping at the funeral of  the oldest member in our church family.

 She would have turned 100 years old in July!

Listening to all the heartwarming memories and tributes

was so inspiring and encouraging to we still in the process of 

creating legacies not yet left behind.

Below is the photo released of Queen Elizabeth II 

on her 96th birthday on Thurs. April 21, 2022

 

We cherish her example of faithfulness as well!

 Both of these women

live/lived through an incredible almost-century of progress, 

and tremendous challenges and change

with unwavering faith!

 “For me the teachings of Christ 

and my own personal accountability before God 

provide a framework in which I try to lead my life.”

~Queen Elizabeth~

 

Oh, that we would also be able to leave behind a lifetime legacy, 

not of perfection but of courageous faithfulness to the end,

of 'remembering our own personal accountability before God'

so as we leave we may rejoice in this triumphant farewell...

I have fought the good fight, 

I have finished the race, 

I have kept the faith.

2 Tim.4:7

It’s not in how we start but how we end that we achieve

The climax of commitment and the legacy we leave

A few good turns are not enough to earn triumph secured

Or prove the love and faithfulness of the good fight endured

Success and happiness are not always as they appear

Where opulence and pleasure can produce a false veneer

Desire keens the catalyst of longings that will prove

Where we fix our eyes; on things below or things above

Life’s ups and downs that test and try will refine or destroy

Not for the faint of heart is faith fixed on immortal joy

Where faithful to the end God’s promises accompany

Where faithful to the end He bids His followers to be

…thus, breath by breath and step by step and prayer by prayer we go

Faithfulness takes a lifetime its fulfillment to bestow

We cannot rush or fool the proof wrought by life’s highs and lows

Where faithfulness suffers love's thorns with eyes upon The Rose

© Janet Martin

Faithful to the End