Strength in Weakness

By Nita Brainard

A collection of poems in a traditional style with rhyme and rhythm written for those who feel their weakness and look to God for strength. They inspire faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and fellowship with His people.
"There’s only one refuge, one fortress, one tower,
One sure place of safety in earth’s present hour.
There’s only one hiding place, only one rock
That offers salvation to all who will knock."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nita Brainard
• Release date: Jan 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215860779

Nita Brainard

I'm a grandma. Displaced in the middle of North Dakota with children and grandchildren far away, I cried out to God for something to do. Writing and publishing books is one of the things my hands have found to do. Supporting my husband, Lee W. Brainard, to do the same is another.

Book preview

Strength in Weakness

Nita Brainard

2016

Harvey, North Dakota

Cover photo: Harvey Dam at Sunrise

All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.

Dedicated to my daughter

Lydia Caudill

Contents

My Weakness

Faith Is for Failures

Who Are You?

God’s Choice

I Don’t Deserve

Settle My Soul

Healing

Pain

Swords for Souls

Treasure

Left Alone

I Slipped

My Strength

Thou Knowest

We Can

Strength

Thou Art Able

Are You Willing

Once Has God Spoken

My Salvation

Only One

The Bonds Are Broken

Free!

As Dead

Death and Life

It’s Done

Do You Believe in My Savior?

Resurrection Song

The Narrow Way

Christ Alone

Love Enough

The Giver

Thank You

My Guide

The Counsel of the Lord

God Remains the Same

The Will of God

Discerning God’s Will

The Wall

Chastening

My Sins Have Found Me Out

A Minstrel

The Way of Escape

My Refuge

A Refuge

Keep Me, Lord

Trust in the Lord

I Can Safely Rely

They Be Many

It Doesn’t Matter

The Roaring Lion

Yielding

My Prayer

I Ask for a Blessing

I Know What I Want

Knocking Again

Questions

Wind

To Taste a Real Revival

A Gourd

Shade

The Lord of the Universe Listens to Me

My Comfort

The Face of My Savior

Hope in the Darkness

Light on the Inside

Security

My Times and My Tears

God Over All

God Is Love

Perfect in Grace

He’ll Never Leave Me

No Shadow of Turning

My God Is There

My Meditations

What I Wanted

The Well of All Wells

Hiding from Truth

Faith and Pride

Hid with Christ

The Sacrifice of Praise

I Shouldn’t Be Annoyed

Worry and Quietness

Martha Hall

Man’s Intentions

Man Pleasing

Mediocrity

Gossip

Nature Poems

The Prairie Sky

The Prairie

The Testimony of Nature

My Woodland Home

To Hear a Loon’s Cry

Driving to Starks

Personal Poems

Liddie Bear

The Peltier Family

Dinner at the Peltiers

The Stairs

The Preacher’s Shoes

A Happy Connection

Don’s Testimony

Cowper

Cappuccino

Our Rose

Florence

An Itch to Fly

Pacing

Beauty and the Beast

Hope

The Rough Road

Fire

Unquenched

The Window

Perhaps

More Meditations

Expectations in Friendship

Two Teachers

Bubbles

Why Will You Die?

Wisdom

Running

Aaron’s Feast

Food in Egypt

If I Could Be a Martyr

Mary of Bethany

Dreams

Best Wishes

Scripture Index

Preface

In 1993 I was inspired by a magazine article about Fanny Crosby. The author of the article stated that Fanny had written thousands of hymns, starting at the age of 43. I figured if she could start in her forties, I could start at thirty. It is good for my poetry writing career that I didn’t realize at the time that she had been writing poetry since she was six. It was only her hymns that she started writing later in life.

I also had written some poetry as a child. I hadn’t given much attention to rhythm, however, and consistent meter did not come naturally to me. I had to study to make poetry that would be suitable for hymn music and thus an encouragement to God’s people.

For practice and just for fun I wrote personal poems. One of the first was Liddie Bear, inspired by my then two-year-old daughter. I wrote a few other poems at that time, but soon quit. Then, when Lydia (my daughter) was a young teenager, she and her friends began writing poetry. I was inspired by them to take it up again. I found turning spiritual truths into poetic form to be an encouragement to myself and others. My dream to write hymns came true some time later when my son and son-in-law put some of my poems to music. These are included in The Voice of Joy, a hymnbook published by Conjurske Publications.

Lydia requested that I put my poems in a book. The present volume is a complete collection of everything I have written that I consider publishable. It includes some personal and nature poems as well as spiritual poems. May they all be found to honor my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Nita Brainard

June 19, 2016

My Weakness

Faith Is for Failures

Faith is for failures and all who are weak.

The strong have no need of the help that I seek.

The well have no need of a Healer like mine;

The righteous, no need of a Savior divine.

The perfect don’t value my God or His grace,

But I, who have failed and in shame hide my face,

Must cling to the love from above.

The beautiful, eloquent people of earth,

The ones who can glory in what they are worth,

Can’t fathom the love that is shown to a worm

Or grasp of the mercy my failures confirm.

The lack that I feel in myself every day

Instructs my poor soul in the life-giving way,

And I cling to the love from above.

The love the unworthy in mercy have learned

Outshines any love that the good may have earned.

It’s surer and truer, abundant and free,

This love that embraces a sinner like me.

I know that when broken and humbled to dust,

There’s love in which even the weakest can trust,

And I cling to that love from above.

Who Are You?

Job 39 & 40

Can you plunge the depth of seas,

Understand the ways of bees,

Count the waves upon the shore,

Or instruct a dinosaur?

Did you choose our planet’s course

Or give strength unto the horse?

Can you reach up to the sky?

Can you teach the hawk to fly?

Have you made the drops of dew?

Does the rain begin with you?

Have you formed the crystal ice,