Remember
God’s promise
Grace delivers goodness
Eternal life through Jesus
Love
Follow
Heaven’s light
Love’s shining grace
Eternity’s ticket fully paid
Jesus
Accept
God’s love
Promises eternal life
Savior pays our debts
Christ
Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.
From Luke 17:6: “The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.'”
Vanishing prairie hangs on
Isolated town foregone
Time long ago, grand premiere
History fading each year
Showing up on highway map
Road’s wide spot, taking a nap
Middle of farming country
Seldom find even one tree
Boarded-up wood-frame schoolhouse
Empty, forgotten courthouse
No longer town’s pride and joy
Critters, varmints now employ
Railroad track hides in tall grass
Recalling past trains, first-class
Grain elevator hanging on
Memories live, town’s swan song
Single street light standing guard
Night’s shadows, lasting vanguard
Yesteryear’s grandest of homes
Mystery for Sherlock Holmes
Faded sign for Ruth’s Café
Long absent dinner entrees
Movie theater shuttered
Smelling fresh popcorn, buttered
Few remember town’s past times
Hearing nature’s windy chimes
Past glory days, now long gone
Dim sunset, well past its dawn
During my teaching career, I taught 25 years in the eastern prairie country of Montana. Today, many small farming communities struggle for survival while others such as the one in this poem live on only as memories.
Are you carrying a heavy load? God wants to hold it–and you–in His hand.
From 1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
From 1 John 1:6-7: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Traveling earthly journey
Living alongside our Lord
Following His path with trust
Feeling love, grace brings accord
Pursuing God’s righteousness
Confessing sins, big and small
Obeying Holy commands
Hanging up when evil calls
Trading former self for love
Abandoning temptation
Accepting Jesus’ new light
His way, life’s blessed station
Teaching life from Father’s Word
Steering lives in righteous ways
Walking in light, blessing faith
Rejoicing with lasting praise
From the words of American pastor and Christian teacher, Charles Stanley: “Are you trying to carry old baggage into your walk with the Lord? The attitudes, habits, and conduct that were yours before Christ must be abandoned in order for you to walk with God.”
Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life, meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God’s goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things new–created upon your account.
From Ezekiel 36:24-27: “I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
Sounding like Eeyore
Winnie-the-Pooh listens in—
Stop this gloomy talk
Negative self-talk
Pessimistic attitude—
Life needs makeover
Look into life’s lens
Allow bright sunshine inside—
Turning a new page
We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions–bound together by a single unity–the unity of freedom and equality.
There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.
American flag
hangs mournfully
at half mast
Honoring a
courageous, fallen soldier
on a distant battlefield
Many come
to honor this
patriotic, young man
Supporting his loved ones
Family, wife, and children
Who will miss
his gentle soul
Let us
never forget
this day!
The ultimate sacrifice
paid by
one mighty soldier
So many others
may be free
U.S. Army Specialist Joseph P. Collette died on March 22, 2019 from enemy fire in Afghanistan while on a combat mission. This poem is written to honor him along with all others who have fallen.
The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals.
From Romans 6:4-5: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Big Sky Buckeye 