Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Overcomer





Oft hope would be foiled by failure
Fervor overcome with fear
Hunger like a honing saber
Strumming sorrow’s numbing tear

Disappointment would defeat us
Heartache, ah, terminal blight
Dark the dawn would break to greet us
Overcome by terror’s night

Long would be the road, and lonesome
Haunted by misstep and such
Discouragement like a prison
Barring lips from laughter’s touch

But for One, who grants forgiveness
By His grace joy fills this clod
Overcome with mercy’s kindness
From a faithful, loving God  

From wasteland He wakes a garden
Overcomes Past with Today
Provider of peace and pardon
As we how head-heart and pray

Keeper of His Promise, Heaven
Faith trusts in what none can see
Through Christ's blood sinners forgiven
Overcome hell’s destiny


© Janet Martin

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, 
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Heb.4:16

 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. 
In this world you will have trouble. 
But take heart! 
I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. 
And His commandments are not burdensome,
our faith.  
Who then overcomes the world? 
Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
1 John 5:3-5

Heaven in our Hands...



Although there was a lot of this last week at the cottage,

 ...leaving golf-courses lake-strewn

there was always this to keep spirits from getting very low;-)



Ah baby-child, pure innocence
Stranger as yet to sin’s commands
Kissable chubby, cherub-ness
A glimpse of heaven in our hands

And we oft, softly wonder-struck
By teeny toes and rose-bud lips
Know that we need far more than luck
On life's vast sea of sinking ships

'Where influence soon touches you'
Ah, pray God then to touch us first
So we know what is good and true
In a world, careless and sin-cursed

And pray God; guide our hearts-hands-feet
Lest we would lead a child astray
Where innocence so pure and sweet
Cannot and will not stay this way

© Janet Martin

Whether soldier, worker, athlete, etc.; to learn something or excel at it requires training...
A powerful word when applied to the raising of our children!

 Train up a child in the way he should go:
 and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Prov.22:6



Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Aha, Aha, Amen

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jer.17:9



The heart, the heart of man
Is wicked to the core
We ought, we ought; all that we can
To read God’s scriptures more

The love, the love of God
Never betrays our trust
We should, we should humbly applaud
His compassion for us

The hope, the hope we have
Is found in Him alone
How cold, how cold the hostile grave
‘Neath unbeliever’s stone

Prepare, prepare with awe
For that from which none flee
The righteousness of Holy God
And Immortality

The way, the way we end
Depends Wholly on this;
Believe, believe, my soulmate, friend
In He who ever IS

© Janet Martin

It is IMPOSSIBLE not to realize it again and again,
as we turn from the graveyard filled with the dead
 back to the land of the 'still dying',
 how deceitful, wicked and worldly, when left to its own vices,
the heart is!
Let's face it; God's grace is our only, utter hope!


Better The House of Mourning



 Yesterday we attended the funeral of another one of my mother-in-law's sisters. 
She was in her 88th year, spending most of them in quiet, humble service to her family and fellowman.
This verse was read in her funeral message of comfort and caution...

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: 
for that(death) is the end of all men; 
and the living will lay it to his heart.
Eccles.7:2



Better the house of mourning
Its meeting to attend
Than to ignore the warning
‘Soon life’s short stint will end’

Better the house of mourning
Where solemn heed is paid
To an orbit adorning
Life's dust-to-dust parade

Better the house of mourning
Than wine and feast's embrace
Lest we fall prey to scorning
The gravity of grace

Better the house of mourning
For there meek thought is bowed
Beneath Love’s tender awning
Resisted by the proud

Better the house of mourning
As mankind lays to heart
The crux of this sojourning
Where flesh and soul will part

© Janet Martin



While chatting with my oldest sister at the luncheon after the service, I mentioned that when I get home I need to tend to 2 Bu. of beans waiting to be preserved.


Guess who showed up at my house as soon as she could?!! Yep, Cheryl, my oldest sister.
Sometimes secretly I think her name might be Tabitha and this verse(Acts 9:36
in modern day could read something like this;
In Wallenstein there is a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Cheryl); 
she is always doing good and helping the poor.

SO glad Sat. night's picking is preserved...
  ...before we begin today's batch.


Ambient Allegience and Dave update and Happy August!!



The combines have begun humming...

the harvest has begun and golden, waving vistas are about to disappear into the steel jaws of Past

We hailed the hold of budded boon
Of mossy trail with violets strewn
Where wooded grail restored the tune
Of maple-linnet bower
The color-wheel of nature bled
Beneath, around and overhead
As earth Her somber mantle shed
For fairer frocks of flower

Don shrouds ablaze with golden sheen
In days where thrill of May had been
We sense a soft undoing
Like innocence of youthful bride
Succumbing to time’s stringent stride
And currents in a wresting tide
Of elemental wooing

A curtain falls across the place
Where mothers call and children race
Through doors that cannot bar the chase
Of summer’s fading beauty
While farmers bear the harvest home
And dreamers stare across the loam
That hearkens to a metronome
Of adamant entreaty

…and then the halo of new morn
Silvers with frost stark stalks of corn
And what we thought was quite new-born
Is brittle, bent and weathered
The sweep of countryside is still
Stolid, the line twixt sky and hill
Where we bear witness to the will
Of breath by breath untethered

© Janet Martin 

On Sunday evening Jim and I visited with Dave and Karen for a little while. Although he is feeling much better in some areas, his arms above his elbow/shoulders are still not healing properly so they plan to do more x-rays to see what is going on. 
They deeply appreciate your continued prayers for healing and for much-needed patience for everyone! 
Dave, summer-lover!!! is watching it slip away and though I KNOW he counts his blessings(it could have been SO much worse) he struggles with bouts of restlessness as he thinks of things he wishes he would be able to do!
So, again, please keep praying!
p.s. I was glad to hear his hearty laughter is back and his deep love for the Toronto Blue Jays has not suffered a bit;-)