What Gentle Joy God Sendeth...

Blessed be the Lord,

Who daily loads us with benefits,

The God of our salvation!

Selah

20 Our God is the God of salvation;

And to God the Lord belong escapes from death.

Psalm 68:19-20

So much sorrow, beyond our grasp of reason

but our God is the God of salvation!

To His loving kindness we cling!

Surely, His goodness and mercy will follow us

all the days of our lives!

 (Psalm 23:6)

Sometimes our hearts break with our own sorrows.

Often our hearts hurt for another's hurt!

We have in common One who loves us all!

From one deeply hurting this week returned this meek reply.

'we want to trust that God can provide what is needed'

Amen and hallelujah

I Can hear My Saviour Calling...

 

Be Thou My Vision

What gentle joy God sendeth

No step He does not see

On all the way that wendeth

To the soul’s destiny

No tear He does not tally

No storm He cannot still

No God-forsaken valley

No God-forsaken hill

No prayer He does not reckon

Where disappointments try

Where want and worry beckon

He whispers ‘here am I’

No gain He has not granted

No loss He has not known

No seed, when it is planted

He does not see is sown

No hurt He has not suffered

No matter what we face

The blows of life are buffered

With His sufficient grace

No temptation’s vice greater

No trickery too sly

To confound the Creator

Of earth and sea and sky

What gentle joy God sendeth

Where mercy’s fathoms brim

To cheer the way that wendeth

From this world back to Him

© Janet Martin

Of Unrelenting Honor & By The Grace of God

Therefore, what God has joined together

let not man put asunder.

Mark 10:9

The above words grow more solemn as the years pass.

I've seen God tug the tie many times,

and I have seen man attempt to do it

leaving heartbreak harsher than

the sorrow of death in it's wake...

Today, but by God's grace

 Jim and I celebrate 34 years of marriage.

Because 'love is a many-splendored thing'

It's a two-poem celebration😅💕

Counting dating years we've been together for 40 roller-coaster years!

I'm playing a few of our favorite love songs today

Hello Love, Hank Snow

 

I'd Love You All Over Again- Alan Jackson

Of Unrelenting Honor...

Of cares weathered together

Of vows highly esteemed

Of tests to ‘I do’s’ tether

In ways we never dreamed

Of constant, sacred learning

Of faithfulness, because

There can be no returning

To life the way it was

Of compassionate living

And in ire’s pricks and stings

Of merciful forgiving

Because love bears all things

Of being understanding

When we don’t understand

Not selfishly demanding

To force the other’s hand

Of praying without ceasing

To be humble in heart

For there is no releasing

This pledge ‘ till death do part’

To be best friends forever

And never say, ‘I’m done’

When Satan tries to sever

The cord that makes two, one

Of sharing pain and pleasure

Committed to love’s vows

Of treasuring the measure

Of all God’s grace allows

And, whatever betide us

Of hilltop or of vale

Of asking Him to guide us

So, love will never fail

Of critique left unspoken

Of unuttered lament

Lest blame becomes love’s token

Rather than compliment

Of choosing to be grateful

Of laughing till we cry

Of fighting to be faithful

Until God pulls the tie

Of unrelenting honor

For love is like a cup

That always needs another 

...self cannot fill it up 

Let's fill it with an ocean

And in its pouring prove

With beholden devotion 

The greatest of these; love

© Janet Martin

But By the Grace of God (till death do part)

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

Eager/Earnest Expectation...

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in behind and before;

You have laid Your hand upon me.

Psalm 34:7

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,

and he delivers them.

Psalm 125:2

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the LORD surrounds His people, both now and forevermore.

The gleaming scepter of new day stretches across the land...

A symbol of God’s sovereignty;

Beauty survives/thrives...

The gleaming scepter of new day stretches across the land

A symbol of God’s sovereignty; all beneath His command

Beauty survives where destruction and death’s heartache abounds

Above trouble and rebellion, God’s faithfulness resounds

Where ’blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth’

Then turn the other cheek and speak of He who gives life worth

Do not despair; it is not cares that hem us in but He

Who works for our good, who watches over you and me

Such knowledge is too wonderful for mortal to attain

Nothing can separate us from God’s sovereign love, amen

Creation's gilt-edged grandeur grants a glimpse of what yet waits

On highways not yet paved with gold, on this side of Hope's Gates 

Where what we bear is temporal; the cross precedes the crown

The test precedes the triumph; when we lay our burdens down

When prayer no longer wends its way from man to Mercy's Door

When sorrow's wounds and broken hearts are healed forevermore 

When what faith cannot understand or comprehend unveils

The glory of God's face, His hands scarred with imprints of nails

When our present suffering will ever fade away

Creation waits in eager/earnest expectation for that day

© Janet Martin

Rom.8:18-19

*I consider that our present sufferings 

are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us.

 19The creation waits in eager expectation for

 the revelation of the sons of God. 

Yester-dusk...

Creation's gilt-edged grandeur grants a glimpse of what yet waits

On highways not yet paved with gold, on this side of Hope's Gates 

So Rather Than Lament...

Happy 58th Birthday, Jim!

(I asked him what it looks like where he is celebrating his birthday

so he sent me these sweet shots of upstate New York!)

(for non-regular visitors, he is a truck-driver)

...and since my birthday always follows a week later 

this wry look at getting older is for both of us😅💕😘

Like miles beneath your eighteen wheels the years just peel away

Sometimes it feels as if time steals a month, a week, a day

But it is futile to object or try to rearrange

This thing that nobody as yet has found a way to change

So rather than lament the swift, deft exodus of years

Let’s make the most of what is left before it disappears

…like laughing at ourselves when what once functioned starts to slip

Like dancing like we still have swagger in our one good hip

Like learning how to shuffle when our ‘gid-up’ starts to stall

While wishing for a port-a-potty halfway down the hall

And when one younger wonders at the blunders we engage

We now can laugh and blame our gaffes on good old, good old age

When the forgetter performs better than Remember does

When we become the crowd that prefers Life The Way It Was

When favor and frustration wage a telling tug of war

Futile to try to act like we are only twenty-four

So rather than lament the weathered cover of our youth

Let’s make the most of huff and puff and just admit the truth

Yes, sometimes getting up requires extra grunts and groans

The marathons we run are fetes of grand, mental milestones 

And the face in the mirror, we don’t recognize as ‘me’

Must be a rascal playing tricks on fine-tuned faculty😂

My goodness! Time’s surprises sometimes make me shake my head

The highlight of the day is when its time to go to bed

© Janet Martin

Here's to many more 'surprises' by the grace of God!

The Strength of Hope's Expectancy...

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Tragedy tests trust!

Oh God, help us to trust You 

and not lean on our own understanding!

Help us to search out Your promises

so when trouble comes 

we can draw from the well of hope's strength!

The Cleft of  the Rock

The strength of hope’s expectancy does not maintain itself

Nor grows in grace and truth from Bibles closed upon a shelf

To find, we cannot cease to seek; what we love we pursue

(Forbid a form of godliness becomes our go-to)

The veil is rent; forbid we never pause to enter in

To the holy of holies to name and confess our sin

Forbid we never name the Name of He who paid sin’s price

Nor offer our bodies as a living sacrifice

If the joy of the Lord is our strength, oh, pray we cease

To wander from His promises in search of perfect peace

But rather may the Holy Spirit stir our hearts to brim

With hope and joy and peace as we place our trust in Him

The strength of Hope’s expectancy is no coincidence

No mortal moxie can sustain what only faith augments

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name

Forbid we fail Thy righteousness and goodness to proclaim

…or, that a form of godliness denies the power thereof

And we live as if what the cross offers is not enough

Our Father who art in Heaven, convict us so we

Repent, lest sin impairs the strength of hope’s expectancy

© Janet Martin

Darling May, Farewell

In Ontario, May goes from bare...

...to burgeoning with bloom

from warm hats and coats ...

...to sundresses and splash-pads

(May 31)

...and last but not least

from no baby to

sweet, sweet baby boy

( 14 hours old)

(never mind the baby! 'what's that, mommy?!'

Concerned Big Brother wants to know😊💖)

Almost 3 weeks old

Farewell, (almost) most beloved month of all!!

To release you is akin to farewell’s final embrace

A sense of fallen blossom-stars wafting in outer space

This reluctant relinquishment of what no one can keep

Always makes me regret the fact that sometimes we must sleep

…while buds begin to bulge then burst because they cannot stay

The Miracle waiting to steal our baited breath away

While isle upon isle undergoes, with sunny zephyr-kiss

A steady and unprejudicial metamorphosis

To let you go is always bittersweet, my love, because

You never leave the world as stark and sullen as it was

Beneath your touch creation thrives, sparse shadow-filigree

Grows deep and dark…a picnic blanket tossed beneath each tree

Expectancy and wonder, like silence and thunder meld

The earth is like a canvas with no verdant hue withheld

Where we all become dancers in spirit if not footloose

In a ballroom refurbished with a fresh coat of chartreuse

Each furrow is replenished with seed-sized symbols of trust

While we are wildly torn between duty and wanderlust

Because something about the way you arrange green and blue

Makes us want to experience every angle of you

Forgive me if I linger with my arms around your scent

For my thought aches with echoes; mementos of love well-spent

And I could not bear to let go, darling May afternoon

But for the impending hello of darling, darling June

© Janet Martin

Flower-Fountain of Joy

Praise God from whom all flowers flow;

from whom all bloom-bells peal...

From woodland founts and garden-dirt gushes earth’s lushest green

The miracle of birth restores vistas where death had been

We who are captured by the woo where beauty’s fountain brims

Are overcome with joy renewed by age-old petal-hymns

A gala fit for kings and queens unfolds before our gaze

Inviting beggars to partake of lily-laden trays

We do. With hearts agape with praise for nature’s flower-fount

As joy marvels at masterpieces too profuse to count

Praise God from whom all flowers flow; from whom all bloom-bells peal

He threads bud-looms with periwinkle, rose, Solomon’s seal

The beauty of creation from unnumbered fountains spills

Joy bows in adoration to the One who clothes the hills

The tall grass sways and plays a shimmer-soft arpeggio

How long we waited for the lays of wispy ebb and flow

For curlicues of rainbow hues from umber vaults of sod

Joy knows no bounds but turns into exaltation to God

© Janet Martin

The tall grass sways and plays a shimmer-soft arpeggio...

Matt.6:27-34

And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto [a]the measure of his life?

28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;

they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you,

that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is,

and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you,

O ye of little faith?

31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat?

or, What shall we drink?

or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;

for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness;

and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow:

for the morrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Heaven-bent...

 

Not so enlightened, as to be

Careless with hope’s security

Not so engrossed in earthliness  

I do not prize faith's promises

Not so prosperous I forget

The hungry poor who have no bread

Not so successful as to slide

Into subtle pitfalls of pride

Not so consumed with avarice 

I snub salvation's purchase-price

Not so ingenious I ignore

The One who said ‘I am the Door’

Not so comfortable that I

Am loathe to bid this world good-bye

Not so intent on things below

I have no heaven-wealth to show

No living proof, by quiet deed

Of compassion for those in need

No legacy of self outpoured

As evidence of Christ as Lord

No desire to be poor enough

To treasure most His grace and love

And count all worldly gain as loss

To marvel daily at the cross

To keep in mind, earth's lease is lent

And live each moment, heaven-bent  

© Janet Martin

Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, 

strive for the things above, 

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

 2Set your minds on things above,

 not on earthly things. 

Col.3:1-2

Where Your Treasure Is