Remembrance and Anticipation

Posted by Joanne in Everyday Life, Grief, prayer poems on Jan 7th, 2011 | 0 comments

Another year has passed, a year painful to remember yet impossible to forget. A year when last my mother breathed, when last I embraced her, heard her voice, saw her face. The last year any of those things would ever take place in my life.

 

The new year dawned with her birthday. She would have been 60. Every new year will make it impossible to forget, as if I could, as if I wanted to. I will never forget the life with which my own was so connected.

 

We don’t forget what we’ve gone through, the pastor said on Sunday. Remember God’s goodness and faithfulness, what He taught you in difficult circumstances.

 

But, he said, we need fresh words for today. Fresh hope. And in this new year, he encouraged us to anticipate something new in our relationship with Him, in our experience of Him.

 

And so I do, remembering a favorite verse: But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in You. (Psalm 39:7)

 

* * *

 

It is You I anticipate, You I expect—

Your character again my experience,

over and over,

desired, revealed, delightful.

You

are the life in death,

the wholeness from the brokenness,

the new thing

from the old.

 

I remember You, O Grace—

embracer of tears,

kind to the downcast heart,

enduring in love.

I remember those arms

everlasting

enabling, carrying, strengthening

the one weak with sorrow,

the one weakened still.

 

I anticipate You

more than circumstances, more than the dawn,

Sovereign One—

meet me.

Walk with me.

Speak Your heart

as I speak mine.

Let us exchange words,

poems,

let me offer praise

increasingly

that it may grow to become

unceasing,

that Your glory may flow

between You and me,

my life a

remembrance

of Your faithfulness, an

anticipation

of seeing Your face in the lifetime to come.