A TINY PUZZLE PIECE

A TINY PUZZLE PIECE

I am a tiny puzzle piece
Jagged edges all around
Is there a place for me?
And can that place be found?

I am a tiny puzzle piece
No power of my own
Amidst so many others
My place must be shown

I am a tiny puzzle piece
No one knows just where I go
Size and shape so unique
So only God will know

I am a tiny puzzle piece
It looks like I’ll place last
So many others precede me
I must remain steadfast

The Lord has a special place
Which only I can fill
So, I wait patiently
According to God’s will

I WAS a tiny puzzle piece
God’s masterpiece now complete
It’s beauty beyond compare
And my reward so sweet!

Going Fishing

Going to that secret spot
Where fishes are but fishers not
So excited, worms are wriggling
Par for course when going fishing

Round the bend toward the river
Jolly joints begin to quiver
at the sound of fisher whistling
In my secret spot for fishing!

What on earth could be the cause
To make this fisher drop my jaws?
Drops his line where mine is missing
In secret spot for going fishing

Turns out my sacred secret place
Welcomes quite a rapid pace
Of other avid fishers wishing
for a secret spot of fishing

What’s a fisherman to do?
Can secret spots for one hold two?
Crowded limbs in water swishing,
Now behold, two fishers fishing!

I cast my line and set my rod
And start to talk about my God
Caught for all my Gospel dishing?
Fisherman who went out fishing!

Behold, the Man

He hung each star and planet -- now hangs on splintered wood
He washed the feet of others -- now His are bathed in blood
He called Himself, Good Shepherd -- this sacrificial Lamb
Behold, this Jewish drifter -- was Israel’s great I AM

Condemned to die, yet blameless -- convicted on a whim
He cured the blind with spittle -- but now they spit on Him
Was called a friend of sinners -- on either side, a thief
Behold, the Man of Sorrows -- acquainted with much grief

The One who healed so many -- can’t move His hands or feet
He offered life eternal -- but dies now in the heat
The Son of God Almighty -- though He was virgin-born
Behold, the Rose of Sharon -- now wears a crown of thorns

Valued Full Price

He was the “Son of a carpenter,"
And His father taught Him to see
The value of a wooden block
That seems worthless to you or to me.

Daily the carpenter cut to refine
Using his sharp-edged knife,
Making of wood block a master design,
And bringing it detail and life.

So He carves it by hand
And values the wood block full price.

In just the same way, the carpenter's Son
Finds value in each earthen soul.
He stoops to betake us-- a great work to make us,
And brings our short lives to their whole.

Stripping the worthless from life's wooden lump
Is the task of the cold, sharpened tool.
God Himself loves us, proven well as He trims us,
Though we fear that His shaping is cruel.

So He shapes us by hand
And values His wood block full price.

For life's little block has no value at all
Without the deep cut of the knife.
And while He must break us, our Carpenter makes us
His masterpiece, valued full price.

The Blessing

Jesus Christ, our only Savior;
Suffering pains no tongue can tell;
Turning away God's wrath forever;
Saving His saints from the pains of hell.

To remind us and to save us;
With His life, the quickening flood;
His flesh that He then gave us;
With His wine -His precious blood.

Praise the Father, God in Heaven;
Who gave over to death His Son;
To pay and to defend us
From our misdeeds we do and have done.

Christ calls to the heavy-laden;
Those not yet strong,or not yet well;
He'll make the weary hearts gladden;
Despise the best physician's skill.

No one can earn their own salvation;
Or this feast that is spread for me;
Useless is my own death and passion;
Unless my Holy Helper it is He.

If you believe this Gospel truly;
Then as a welcome Guest you'll be;
All your confessions He makes holy;
While His Feast is spread for me.

The Eternity of Music

In tracing of unnumbered years
They traverse time unknown
Someone pauses, faintly hears
A singing sweet, now gone

Straining far to hear the sound
Of song-wisps drifting by
Tenderly twirling and turning around
With fingers that fade and fly

O Music! Delight of our soul and living!
From whence you came far away
Make my life full and for giving
Be here, I cannot stay

The echoes of past I bare recall
Resounds through time and space
Each step laid down, with each footfall
Upon each point and place

The music I hear, and now I make
It passes beat by beat
Note by note shall soon awake
Its counterpoint shall meet

Blended into musical time
Unspeakable beauty to name
All thoughts transcend, and all sublime
Returning to whence it came

Within the heart of music true
Are infinite wonders to bear
The start from which it will ensue
The end to bring it there

The end is but the start of all
The start the start of the end
The starting notes are yet the call
The late notes are to send

In living, in giving, in all life receiving
Each person plays part of a song
In singing, in sounding, in music believing
Each moment its part to belong

He beckons with an open hand
Sweetly his song is sung
In words that none can understand
Nor hear from his own tongue

Pouring forth from deep to deep
In sounds both light and bright
Melody notes that leap and leap
In depths from height to height

Sounding and resounding more
Reverb’rates eternally long
The words to sing were sung before
More singing infinity’s song

The cosmos far its edge to reach
There time may run its end
All our knowing, all our speech
Around us comes to bend

Infinite depths we yet can sound
Eternity no limit knows
The world his music makes it round
Endlessly song echoes

Once the music had been sung
Across ten thousand years
In faintest strains o’er us is hung
Soft melody sounds he hears

Strain we may to hear each word
Transcending space and time
None by him are left unheard
All perfect in rhythm and rhyme

The Visitation

Blow the trumpets in Zion, blow;
Sound an alarm throughout the land.
Let all the people quake with fear
Until all hear and understand.

A day of gloominess and dread,
Dark as the deepest day or night;
One where only meteors shine;
As mist upon the mountain spread.

Destruction from the Lord has come.
Look! He is an avenging sword;
Who sent His hostile armies forth:
The terrible day of the Lord.

Look at His Word, the embattled power;
A flame is kindled by their fears;
Plagues, famines, hate, and swords have joined;
His fire before their face devours.

Before their face as Eden blooms,
Lays the pleasant landscape to waste.
No more the seat of joy and peace;
Their breath, the paradise consumes.

Four horsemen harnessed for the fight;
Loud rattling's were never far.
Light over the mountain top they bound,
Borne headlong with restless might.

1 John 4:7
King James Version

"Beloved, let us love one another:
for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."