Sometimes....

Sometimes it seems to take a cross to make your servant strong,
Sometimes it seems to take a loss to help me sing Your song,
Sometimes it takes a higher hill to bring me close to you,
Whatever it is, I’ll trust Your will, I know You’ll see me through

Sometimes it seems to take the rain so I can see the sun,
Sometimes it takes the bitter pain to melt my heart of stone,
Sometimes it takes a tempest soar to make me hold Your hand,
To make me trust a little more though I don’t understand

Sometimes it takes great sacrifice to find the wealth I own,
And only when we pay its price Your deepest love is shown
It sometimes takes a walk through fire to bring a clearer shine,
It sometimes takes the bog and mire to find Your strength divine

Whatever it be through flood or flame or through the valley low,
Your love for me will be the same for You have promised so,
And though it sometimes takes a tear to help Your servant see,
Tis then I glimpse a love so dear; the love You have for me

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Janet Martin

Guilt

You are sorrow within laughter
You are sadness in a smile
You are the absent twinkle
In a precious loved ones eye
You are poison in life’s wine
A shard in joy’s full cup
You cause your victim to look down
Instead of looking up

Guilt you’re an ugly burden
We stagger beneath your weight
You will not budge though we vainly try
To forget the deed we hate
You are still there like a fleck in the eye
Why, oh why won’t you leave?
We cannot taste the sweet pleasure in life
With your bitter nectar of grief

How can we cast this burden aside?
And dance where the innocent play
Someone has told of One who died
To wash dark guilt away
If we confess our deepest sin
And with our hearts believe
He will wash and make us clean
If we His love receive

Then He will give us strength to bear
Our failures and regrets
But we will bear the guilt no more
Dissolved in the blood He shed
The shadow in our peace is guilt
Convicting us of sin
For this His perfect blood was spilled
To make us pure within

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Janet Martin


Therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus,
because through Christ Jesus the
law of the Spirit of life set me
free from the law of sin and death. Rom.8:1

In the Trenches

Unless I’m in the dirty trenches
Sharing in the toil and stenches,
I should never cast a stone
At the one down there alone,
Unless I’ve walked with him awhile,
Wept his tears and shared his smiles,
Pushed against misfortunes wind,
Shouldered burdens of his kind,
Unless I’ve borne his bitter fate
And fought his battles, small or great,
I should not have a word to say
Unless of course, it is to pray

Love is for the weak and brave,
Not the crest of some great wave,
Love seeks out the lonely face,
Searches in the dreary place,
And it never casts a rock
Into the trench where weary walk,
Love is gentle, love is kind,
Love to differences is blind,
Love does not seek out its own,
Or worship heroes on a throne,
So if love’s not my driving force
I should be still, and pray, of course

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Aug. 2009 Janet Martin






Beloved, if God so loved us we ought also to love one another. 1 John 4;11