God’s Aging Vessel
I often lie awake and ponder life,
more kind than cruel through my many years.
The peaceful times by far outweigh the strife,
and laughs have flowed more frequently than tears.
The future – my tomorrows, oh, so brief –
holds challenges. I look to God each day,
for He knows all. It’s still my firm belief
He has a plan, and He’ll show me the way.
The past is an instructor I respect
for guiding me through failure and success.
The present is the path that will direct
me to tomorrow’s fleeting happiness.
Life beckons. God is working on me still.
He’ll bless me if I strive to do His will.
____________________
At the End of the Rainbow
At my rainbow's end, there is no pot of gold,
but something more magnificent to behold.
There won't be, as some think, beyond that last breath,
just a burial plot for my home after death.
We've more than a body; each one has a soul
that can't be interred in a six-foot-deep hole.
My conscious and undying soul will then be
with Jesus, who saved me and set my soul free.
I'll have a new, glorified body up there,
sweet peace in a lovely place beyond compare,
prepared just for me as my promised reward
for trusting God's only Son, Jesus, as Lord.
Right now we can’t grasp the full reality
of life after death, souls, and eternity;
but all-knowing God gives us what we need now –
His Spirit and His Holy Word that tells us how
to follow His plan and how Heaven can be
the home of our souls after death sets them free.
Beyond my last rainbow, a home waits for me
in Heaven. God’s glory at last I will see.
Janice Canerdy is a retired high-school English teacher from Potts Camp, Mississippi.
She especially enjoys rhymed, metered poetry and mourns its near-demise in some
circles. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications, including Wild Violet,
The Road Not Taken, Bitterroot, Society of Classical Poets, Lighten Up Online, Better
Than Starbucks, Saturday Evening Post, and in anthologies published by the Mississippi Poetry Society, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Whispering Angel Books, and Quill Books. She is the author of Expressions of Faith, published by Christian Faith Publishing.