The Perfect Motivator For Everything We Do

 Love is patient, love is kind. 

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no account of wrongs.

1 Cor.13:4-5

A new commandment I give you: Love one another. 

As I have loved you, so also you must love one another.  

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, 

if you love one another.” 

John 13:34-35

What excellent persuasion

Motivates me and you

When love becomes the reason

For all we say and do

How soft a season scatters

The everyday of lives

Then tucks its tender tatters

Into Bygone’s archives

…and all that really matters

In daily here to there

Is what we did for others

To show we love and care

Then be not long despondent

When weary of its ‘ask’

Love makes each role resplendent

Regardless of its task

…and makes most noble victors

From earth’s lowliest lot

If we live to love others

With everything we’ve got

With all that we can muster

Let's lift love's beacon high

And imitate Love's Author 

The Lord of earth and sky

© Janet Martin

 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, 

but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Mark 10:45

I often think of/listen to the song below, when someone passes on...

 

...and another beautiful 'love' song!

For School-of-Life Scholars....

While students in Canada enjoy a week of March break students of life forge on

...because there is no 'March Break' in the school of Life😁

(Markers of graduates from centuries past)

Beneath the iron tutelage

Of stars that dim at dawn

Each day is like a fresh, white page

Time’s students write upon

...where he is no respecter of

Scholars of days and years

And no one graduates, my love

Until time disappears

For there is always something More

To learn and learn anew

Regardless of zillions before

We have to learn it too

Father Time coaches human race

In ways beyond our guess

Where roads that teach patience and grace

Help us learn happiness

…and sometimes he will kick us hard

To tame habits uncouth

His subjects often battle-scarred

While gaining Wisdom’s Truth

For in time’s class of constant change

Where some things never do

Do you not think it rather strange?

The old is always new

And mouths of boldest boast admit

No one can outfox he

Who taps his scepter on the lid

Of dumb mortality

For human nature is prone to

…predictability

Then bravo to the student who

Masters humility

© Janet Martin

Divine Consolation

Remember when the adrenaline of youth ran like molten music in our veins?!

(art credit: Melissa from her high-school collection)
 Sometimes, when I'm super-tired I miss my younger, more energetic person;-)

Remember when we thought 'impossible' That which haste of years brings

 and others (whose shoes we now fill) warned us about...?!(like grunting when we get up?!) lol

Ah! with each step-breath-twilight nears the threshold of life's sunset years...

How smooth the hand that turns each page then shuts the book on middle-age...

As winter, like a strange postcard echoes of summer, caught off guard!

As we age, aren't you thankful for a Divine Console-er that never ages or fails as our bodies do?!

God, Author of time’s temp’ral scale

And Arbitrator of what is

What Divine Consolation, this

To know His law will never fail

His law is Love; ah, sometimes we

Misunderstands God’s Higher Thought

When we try to decipher what

No mortal mind is made to see

No man has seen God; thus fools scorn

For knowledge trusts in what it sees

But faith accepts God’s mysteries

Consoled by He who metes each morn

How pitiful is brainwashed dust

So lust inclined and vision blind

Divinity consoles mankind

When heart and mind resigns to trust

Alpha, Omega, First and Last

God’s Ordinances no one thwarts

While Divinity’s mercy courts

Mortality’s rebellious cast

Where soon youth’s burst of speed declines

On landscapes deftly rearranged

And what we clasp is soon estranged

As change insists on fresh designs

 And writes laugh-lines of poetry

Across the brow once smooth and young

 ‘No-ways’ that boldly braved the tongue

Concede vulnerability

…and slowly we begin the crave

What once we thought so little of

God’s Divine Consolation; love

To escort us beyond the grave

© Janet Martin

 For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,

He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

This saying is trustworthy. And I want you to emphasize these things, so that those who have believed God will take care to devote themselves to good deeds. 

These things are excellent and profitable for the people.

Titus 3:3-8

Some Crucial Do's and Don'ts

I pray in this poem it is not a note of harshness, but earnest love that prevails!
Time is the most precious insecurity that we have!
...with do's and don'ts that carry an eternal impact!

Don’t let the gate that looms ahead

That waits to seal away the dead

Steal living’s joy with dying’s dread

Unless you don’t know Jesus

Then call upon the One who saves

The soul, immune to death and graves

Let faith prevail where fear enslaves

But God’s forgiveness frees us

Do not ignore, do not delay 

For who knows who'll meet God today?

His promises prepare the way

Where none return to tell

The glory or the horror of

Either a place of hate or love

Oh, do not wait 'til death will prove

The truth of Heaven or Hell

© Janet Martin

"Now he'll find out" Matt said sadly ...

It is with deep sadness we hear that Stephen Hawking has passed away!

Science can never prove the soul,
disprove the soul
or save the soul!

Also, we mourn with the loved ones of a local young man who was going to be married in June but was struck by a vehicle yesterday and died! We never know when we will meet God but this we do know; We will meet God! Are you ready to meet the One who sent His Son for our salvation and life after death?!

A Living Hope for believers!

 Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.…
1 Thess. 4:13-14

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, 5who through faith are protected by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
1 Pet.1:3-5