Poem

How is Church for You?

September 18, 2020 By Annette1 2 Comments

The Five Minute Friday word prompt is church, you can find the linky over at Miss Kate’s. When I heard the word the words of this song popped into my heard immediately.

Oh come to the church in wildwood
Oh come to the church in the vale…
no thought is so dear to my childhood,
as that little brown church in the vale!

As I sit back and the end of a busy day, I’m a bit perplexed as to where this song will take me in the next five minutes or so. Shall we go for a ride?

How is Church For You?

Sunday Service, 1030 arrive.
Greeting, noise, alive.

Singing loudly, band it plays
Praise, and hymns, voices raise.

Four or six, music tunes
Praising God, the leader croons.

45 minutes pastor extols
The wonders of God, yes we are told.

Singing again, the service it ends.
Into the world, congregation sends.

Covid hits, everything changes.
Staying at home, the government ranges.

No service oh, for many a week.
How to reach people who seek?

Everyone shut in, people away.
How long can things continue this way?

Gradually easing, the rules give way.
Showing improvement, will covid make sway?

30% capacity, we currently stand
Some church attendance, it’s well in hand.

2 songs, no singing allowed.
Announcements too then heads bowed.

Prayer and a message, in minutes, remain.
Can a church service, help us stay sane?

50 minutes total, sign up to attend
Come, let your heart mend.

This season is hard, can the church lend a hand?
To ease the suffering the locked-in barely stand?

How to combat when together forbidden?
Can we show our God who mustn’t be hidden?

How is church for you?

Choosing the Could

September 11, 2020 By Annette1 7 Comments

Choosing the could popped into my rather tired brain last night and I kept falling asleep as I tried to write on it. With a busy day today, I’m still battling exhaustion this evening! But here we have it finally! A poem to go with Miss Kate‘s FMF word prompt.

Choosing the Could

Choosing the could
I stopped to see
What adversity
Might bring to me.

Increased understanding
For others in plight
I started to realize
It was all my fight.

God opened my eyes
To see others pain
Reflected in eyes
Who were also maimed.

Choosing the could
I almost failed to see
How what happened to others
Could happen to me.

Making a choice
Will it be you or me?
Patience is sought
And is often the key.

It’s funny in a way
When you realize a truth
That possibilities exist
Thought forsooth.

Living my life
Choices to make
I have to check that
I the Lord not forsake.

Choosing the could
I chose to press on
Finish the task,
I’ll fight til it’s dawn.

Empathy gained
Hope Restored
Choosing the could
I’ll never be bored.

Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

Joshua 24:15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Proverbs 16:19 In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.

The Scream in the Night

August 27, 2020 By Annette1 12 Comments

Even though I know this poem below doesn’t include the word loud, as soon as I saw the word prompt from Miss Kate it simply spilled off my fingertips. 🙂 The scream in the night, in reality, was less of a scream than call. Just a fully recognized alert sounding for someone who knows the danger hidden in this particular fur coat.

The Scream in the Night

It came suddenly
the scream in the night.
Making my heart
Leap with fright.

With wondering eyes,
to the door I fled.
Hoping in my heart,
against all my dread.

Indeed it was true,
I saw it full well.
That beast of my terrors
Outside my home it did dwell.

What should I do?
This scavenger of might!
With one who would cause
Such alarm in the night?

A trap, yes indeed
This owner would lay.
To keep safe some bunnies
This predator would slay.

Raw in egg, a trap in the other
Place, bait down
Set in place
with a frown.

Would the predator come
Allured by the egg?
Prevent it from grabbing
a young bunnies leg?

Success! Oh the bliss!
There’s no scream in the night!
No more worry
No more fright!

A long-distance journey
A new home to find.
One predator a forest
to place his behind!

Much safer and better
than urban life to live.
Less traffic, natural food
I’m happy to give.

But Mercy Stepped In

August 21, 2020 By Annette1 11 Comments

Miss Kate has the perfect word for us this week. Mercy, isn’t that a wonderful word? Mercy is such a hard thing to understand, and it completely fills a heart when received. A grace for us indeed eh? 🙂

But Mercy Stepped In

This week received
unexpected shock.
Broke a momma’s heart
Almost in two.

But mercy stepped in.
Stopped hard words.

This week received
A time of solid tears.
A momma’s heart remembering
A child of younger years.

But mercy stepped in.
A hug received.

This week received
Conversation badly needed.
A momma’s heart starts to see.
A glimmer of hope.

But mercy stepped in.
Friendship renewed.

This week received
A game in the mail.
Expected two weeks later.
A God-moment in time.

But mercy stepped in
Reconnection enabled.

This week received
Responses from friends.
Rejection expected.
Open arms given instead.

But mercy stepped in.
Hope in the Lord renewed.

This week received
Prayers and phone calls.
Words of hope and peace
From God himself inspired.

So mercy stepped in
in the form of a boy.

This I really saw how
This beloved of God
The creator of worlds.
Cares for his own.

Verses from my heart to yours

Heb 4:16

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Lam.3:22-23

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Eph.2:4-5

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Exodus 34:6-7

⁶The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷keeping steadfast love for thousands,^a] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Romans 5:8

⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Keep Track of Grades

August 14, 2020 By Annette1 6 Comments

I have to admit, I haven’t really known what to write for this final day of the blog hop. What does a non-planner person do for a planning/record keeping day? Then I got to thinking about how my son’s in high school now, and I’m now required to keep track of grades. This reminds me of the stack of papers I have sitting under my laptop for me to file in the appropriate spot. (but we’ll just let that be my little secret eh?)

AND it’s five minute Friday today so I”m hopeful to combine two challenges at once… Think I can do it?

Keep Track of Grades

Highschool has crept upon us
The grades we need to keep
Looking back I do remember
something rather sweet.

Transcripts be made easy
I do remember well.
Keeping grades and scoring
My son thinks that is swell.

Do it right or not at all
My momma used to say
And highschool is done easiest
When approaching it this way.

Mistakes they sometimes happen
Deliberate or not.
And when they do, we’ll see it through.
In time it be forgot.

Be careful on those transcripts
Mark those tests fairly
For colleges and higher
Want the truth you see.

Figuring out the codes to use
It makes my old heart race
What happens if I do it wrong?
Will it slow my dear son’s pace?

I have to always remember
To use the brain I got
God gave it to me years ago
Let not it go fraught.

Take your time
and think it through
Each code needed
Will come to you.

Ah searching hard
The right words find
Course codes for Ontario High School
Takes a load off my mind.

Easy does it one by one
History, science, music too.
Keep track of grades
Four years to do.

Oh, that was fun! It was. Combining Kate’s FMF word RIGHT with the crew’s blog hop planning and record keeping! Took a load off my mind too!

This is day five in the not back to school blog hop.

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses shares Planning / Record Keeping Ideas for Homeschooling. .

Yvie @ Homeschol on the Range shares School Rooms, Charts & More!.

Jessica @ My Homeschool with a View shares Homeschool Planning: Record Keeping.

Lori @ At Home: where life happens shares Record Keeping in High School.

Annette V @ A Net in Time shares Keep track of grades.

Progress

August 7, 2020 By Annette1 8 Comments

Miss Kate has given us another word prompt, this week the word is progress. Shall we see where my muse takes us tonight?

Progress

The more the world moves forward,
the more it falls behind.

Forgetting what’s important
In the bid to always mind.

We must have equality!
Everyone must be treated the same!

Forgetting that our differences
Is part of the game.

The game of life that keeps us
Working in harmony.

In Christ there is no Jew of Greek
There is no slave or free.

It matters not if
Boy or girl.

For us to make progress
In this world.

What we need is the love of Christ
In whose own image made we

Male and female we both show
The God who made us be.

Without the Lord any progress shown
can never truly stand.

Without the Lord we only build
What only can man’s hands.

Is what we build the biggest thing
That for us progress make?

Always remember the Lord made us
Remember it true, for goodness sake.

Scripture Referenced

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal.3:28

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Gen 1:27

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Col.1:16-17

Faith Like the Young

July 24, 2020 By Annette1 10 Comments

As I pondered the word young (the FMF word prompt) this verse popped into my head. “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 18:3 I’ve been pondering it all day wondering how I can make it work with this word… and finally hit upon Faith like the young. We need to have this kind of faith!

Faith Like the Young

Faith like the young
the verse runs true.
Faith like a child
will see you through.

So often we say,
to childhood I will go
Thinking of the freedom
Avoid adulthood go.

But we often fail to see
the faith that children have
An important part of childhood
To their heart a salve.

But remember now these words
That Jesus said,
Hinder not the children
Let them come to me instead.

The faith of a child
so trusting and so deep
Is the faith that we must have
If to heaven we will leap.

Consider yet the wisdom
of the youth within our midst
Can still the foe and avenger
Cause them to desist.

The simple wisdom of a child
Simple faith they hold dear
Simple words of clarity
A faith that’s not so meer.

Remember when you seek
like a child so to be
It’s the faith of a child
that opes heaven up to thee.

Scripture Referenced

As I sought out the words to round out my poem Faith like the Young, I referenced these bible verses.

But Jesus said “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them,
for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:4

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 18:3

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. Psalm 8:2

Building this type of faith means spending time in good devotionals. I found these affiliate links to items we have actually used that might might find helpful as well.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com also has some excellent devotionals and bible studies for all ages. Well worth looking into.

Poem

How is Church for You?

How is Church For You?