hope

When you feel small

/ Joy Lenton / 12 Comments

when you feel small PJ

There are days where we feel so insignificant, invisible even.

It seems as if we blend into the air around, lost in the ether.

Our voices feel weak as tiny bird. Our words fall flat on ears deaf to their sound.

Our place in the here and now looks insubstantial, shaky and small.

It feels like we’re hardly here at all.

Do you have days like that? I do. 

They are red flags to what’s going on inside of us. Warning signs to heed.

They are white flags of surrender. Cries for help beyond ourselves.

Because God becomes our only safe shelter in a world where we feel less than all He made us to be.

He knows the vagaries of the human heart. He listens to every beat it makes. Hears the inner laments and anguish of a soul in torment.

And His Father-heart cries over the cruelty of a world that scorns His Son and tears His children apart.

Because He knows how wearied we can become and how we are made for far more than this world offers.

I’m thankful for those who see, who hear, who listen, who respond and make me feel I have a voice, a tiny place of worth in the scheme of things.

But I’m grateful most of all for the unending, unconditional love of God who helps me to become all that I can be by His grace.

There are no losers, no left out people, no invisible or discarded ones in God’s Kingdom. We are people of great worth and value in His eyes.

We are the grace dwellers, the truth tellers, the anointed, redeemed, blood-bought children He loves beyond measure.

Yes, here.. and now, living in this upside-down kingdom, topsy-turvy world we’re in, we are very significant to Him.

Here

We live in a world addicted to gain

to ascending the summit of success

to amassing, collecting largesse

And yet you call me to dwell here

abide in quiet shadows of surrender

where I sense the humiliation

of my life so small against

the largeness of your love

Here I am nothing, yet remain

everything to you; my emptiness

the reason for your pouring,

filling, overflowing measure

of grace into every dark

and empty space inside my heart

Because your love leads me into

encounter, renewal, fresh start

©JoyLenton2015

When you feel small in the eyes of the world, remember Whose you are, my friend. Such thoughts stirred the  5 minute poem above.

I’m blessed to be joining in with the wonderful writing community that comprises Five Minute Friday. Today’s prompt is:‘Here’. Kate Motaung is our gracious hostess.

You’re very welcome to come and join us at her place as we celebrate the first anniversary of her time hosting this link up.

Also adding to the soul refreshment being served over at Bonnie Gray’s place for Beloved Brews. Do come over and take a fuel stop there.. 🙂

encounter PJ pin

 

Aim at heaven

/ Joy Lenton / 2 Comments

Aim at heaven - CS Lewis pin

Reality and truth are hard to define. We all live with shifting perspectives, objectives and definitions.

Circumstances cloud our judgement. Pain makes us doubt what we thought we knew before.

Life constantly remoulds our thinking, stretches our boundaries.

We sense we are born for more than earthly striving. Our gaze begins to rise heavenwards.

Where can we turn for wisdom? Who will guide us into Truth?

What if we really believed what the Bible says, about how Truth is a person and not an idea?

Jesus came that we might have life in abundance as we place our faith and trust in Him.

He alone can fully answer the questioning soul’s concerns because He brings truth and reality as seen from God’s perspective.

Here, we see in part, understand but a little, comprehend only a fraction of what is taught and revealed, given and received.

We aim at heaven and get earth thrown in, but we still live with mystery into eternity.

So we grow in faith, life and maturity and learn to live into the answers to come.

And we finally become satisfied in the not knowing of all our heart desires to understand.

Because this we do know… we are deeply, unconditionally loved, here for a purpose beyond the present, brought into relationship with God, and able to trust Him in the silence and the dark as well as in the light.

‘Reality’

The greatest reality is seen in divinity

The essence of all that is and exists

Expressions in every place

providing glimpses of grace

A revealing and concealing combined

An unfurling in hearts over time

Whispered sounds down corridors

of years, and roar of waterfalls

echoing in our ears

We see and sense Him all around

Because God is eager to be found

Dark valley-life with heaviness of cloud

acts like a muffler and a shroud

Each storm sends us to our knees

where we offer up our earnest pleas

Our reality too rocky to bear

until we sense Him drawing near

Offering faith-filled walk on water

to every drowning son and daughter

©JoyLenton2015 

Linking here with Barbie at The Weekend Brew where soul refreshment is being served. Come and join us?

reality poem pin

Gifts of grace

/ Joy Lenton / 6 Comments

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Day by day we are writing out our story, a living tale of all that takes place and a living testimony of God’s sustaining grace.

A birthing can occur at any moment in hearts receptive to the new and the next and the in-between.

What seems dead can be enlivened and resurrected by His power – brokenness made whole, beauty brought forth from ashes.

Although many days are shrouded and clouded by painful circumstances, God is still writing out His good and greater narrative into the margins of our lives.

Yes, even as we hover crazy-busy on this edge of space, time and eternity and so often fail to see or sense His continual presence.

We need to remember how we live and breathe and have our being in Him and He lives and breathes in us by His Spirit.

Nothing is incidental, or irredeemable. Nothing is forever lost or wasted.

All is gift and all is grace, but we need eyes to see the sacred in the secular and appreciate its daily nuances.

As we listen closer to our lives we begin to piece together the story they are telling us.

Such thoughts are shaping my daily living and making their way into today’s Five Minute Friday poem.

Grace gifts

Each day we are alive is a gift,

an unfurling, unfolding kernel

mirrored in tender bud and leaf,

so our hearts remain hopeful

of seeing a good ending

I long above all to recapture

a sense of child-like wonder,

become captivated, entranced

by delight seeded within

as this daily sacred dance begins

Each moment we linger longer

to appreciate The Moment

will help peel back layers

to reveal a gift of grace,

open our eyes, blinded by

cultural excess, dulled by stress

and wearied by naysayers

For we are the revealers

unwrapping the Gift of God,

the Truth-sayers, the Way-sharers,

keepers of Light and Love who

employ a deeper discerning

as we dive expectant into the true,

hopeful, bright-blue waters of each day

©JoyLenton2015

I’m blessed to be joining in with the wonderful writing-free-from-the-heart community of ‘Five Minute Friday’ writers over at Kate Motaung’s place as we give our best on the topic of ‘Gift’. You’re very welcome to join in. Do hop on over and check out the other posts there. It’s amazing what a rich variety of thought is stirred by a one word prompt!

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Looking and finding

/ Joy Lenton / 11 Comments

SAMSUNG

‘Looking and finding’

I look for the face of Christ

Now obscured by a cloud of unknowing,

a veil of uncertainty

a mist of missed moments

Grey cobweb coating distorts

all sense of His Presence

I grope blind for the grace of Christ

Now shadowed by seeds of doubt,

a complacency about the commonplace,

a turning away sigh, a dull

grey ache nothing else can

subdue, erase or ever replace

I see and sense Him everywhere

Now as the babe in the manger

An infant Christ-child, an innocent

A mild man bleeding wild-red on a cross

A risen Saviour overcoming

all pain, all sorrow, all loss

I find traces of His face

in every man, woman and child

Though it is seen the most

in those who love Him most of all

His grace, beauty, mercy and charity

reflected imperfectly ~ in you and me

©JoyLenton2015

“In Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognised by those on the way of salvation – an aroma redolent with life..” ~ 2 Corinthians 2:15 – The Message

looking and finding PJ pin

All beauty fades

/ Joy Lenton / Leave a comment

all beauty fades PJ poem image 1

“Charm is deceptive and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God” ~ Proverbs 31:30 (The Message)

‘All beauty fades’

All beauty fades

Each petal that falls

Each shaking loose

Each uncovering

lets in more shade

Soon there will be

nullifying nakedness

Bare stems remain

as thin reminder

Appeal for mercy

all beauty fades PJ poem image 2

And even these

droop low to ground

Stoop old, sigh

final breath

Lase last leaves

A turn to grey

Grave mulch and dust

A crumbling ash

from whose ember

new life holds sway

©JoyLenton2015 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” ~ 1 Peter 1:3-5

all beauty fades PJ poem image 3

New life through death

/ Joy Lenton / 4 Comments

kaleidoscope PJ file image

As Holy week comes toward its grand finale, it’s good to pause and consider the cost of our salvation.

I am pondering all that led to Jesus’ death and what it really means to live in the light of His finished work on the cross.

All that is lifeless within can be enlivened by His Spirit and changed by His grace.

New life through death.

New birth and new beginning.

We ponder and we wonder anew at all Jesus went through to bring us back to God the Father, to restore all that the enemy has stolen.

There is so much more here than one poem can convey.

Far more than I can easily express.

But I hope it will give you a tiny glimpse behind the scenes of Christ’s path to Calvary and its tremendous implications for all mankind.

‘An enlivening spark’

Kaleidoscope colours in your life and mine

collide in varied hues of the human condition

Fractured, splintered at times beyond recognition

So many shade to grey, loom dim and dark

without that vital, enlivening spark

We rest beneath the shadow of the cross

A place which collects all our pain and loss

We crest the hill of Golgotha rising

Eyes straining to see beyond its horizon

We witness a sacred flood of crimson-red

where our Saviour suffered, died and bled

Our own violence and tears join hands

with the punishment our sin demands

Kneeling, weeping, wondering anew

as resurrection Light and power break through

with glory, radiance of Love divine

©JoyLenton2015

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Waiting in the wings

/ Joy Lenton / 4 Comments

daffodils ~ PJ waiting file image

‘Waiting in the wings’

She hovered uncertain, waiting in the wings

for rise of curtain and all it would bring

She wondered how to captivate, inspire,

when the one before her was ice and fire

His command of the crowd was hard and strong

though some said he lingered for far too long

A weight of expectation sat around

as they ached for her melodious sound

The air hung heavy with discontent

Stale and fetid, all enjoyment was spent

Restless stirrings like a pot on the boil

made him falter at last and then recoil

Sensing her moment to quieten the rage,

she danced her way blithely onto the stage

He glanced at her with dark hostility

but she ignored it, twirling light and free

Some thought her a goddess, or nymph at least,

as her season ushered in joy and peace

Arms touching the sun, then bent down to earth,

she knew she was harbinger of new birth

©JoyLenton2015

“See! The winter is past; 

the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come”

(Song of Songs 2:11-12)

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“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ~ Isaiah 43:19

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Leaning toward Lent

/ Joy Lenton / Leave a comment

pancakes file image PJ

‘Turning’

A toss and deft flick of the wrist

Catch in the pan if you can

Watch bubbles rise golden

A sight to whet the appetite

Edges crisped just so, no burning

Though we know the way dreams olden

can be flattened, battered down

Yet still we ponder ~ pancakes

steam-hissing, perfect brown,

capture our attention; we resist

a turn to ash, now relenting

Because hope belongs to man

©JoyLenton2015

This little poem is part of a selection I will be offering here on an ad-hoc basis during the season of Lent, during which I aim to see the sacred speaking into the secular.

Life often bends us sideways but we can always turn toward the Light of God’s presence, be held safe, begin again, allow hope to rise and dreams to be born anew as God directs us toward His best.

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No resting place

/ Joy Lenton / 7 Comments

candle image

‘No resting place’

This ugly-beautiful world

wanted no part

of the dawning wonder

for human hearts

Preferring to rage cold

against the Light

Preferring their own darkness

instead of sight

Hope of glory, Hope of grace

the angels sang

While freed from Mary’s womb Your

earthly life began

No glory crown, no resting place

or kingly bed

But cross and nails and pain

ran berry-red

Death and resurrection

to the skies

Comfort of Your Presence in

Holy Spirit sighs

How blind, how hateful, how cruel

mankind can be

While You offer Love, Joy, Peace

to set us free

©JoyLenton2014

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Vestiges remain

/ Joy Lenton / 10 Comments

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‘Vestiges remain’

Vestiges of summer linger in sun’s warm rays

before fading far away at close of day

Autumnal chill makes body and heart sink cold

and low before they find another warm glow

Each new sunrise brings hope of renewal and change

opportunity for life and love to become rearranged

We are born; we live; we die. And in-between

we welcome, embrace, and bid Goodbye

Every day has moments of goodness

and grace, sadness and sorrow, clinging on

today while we wait for tomorrow

Silver linings shine beneath all dirt and grime

and darkness hovers round us all the time

Light is always waiting at the door if we

have faith to let it in and believe for more

There are no wasted days or years

despite how bleak things may appear

God can redeem every one as we learn

to trust fully in Jesus, His Son

How do we live with this dichotomy?

By remembering the good, giving praise

and being as thankful as we can be

©JoyLenton2014 

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