Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Certain in my heart



Life goes on...

I hate and love those words. Yet, I find that my smiles are more often and my tears are only filled with joy. I know this is how it should be... yet, I can't help but hate that this is becoming only a memory.

That seems so unfair and yet,

life goes on...

I find that I am falling more in love with Jesus and less in love with this world. You taught me that this world is fading, falling, changing... but He is constant.

Tonight with tears I announced what was already certain in my heart, He is everything He says He is. He has proved himself, though I am ashamed to say that he has had to. Yet, he has proved himself to me a hundred no, an infinity times over. Little by little, day by day but all the hope I put in Him I am finding He is satisfying.

He is everything we have been waiting for and...

Life goes on...

and we are called to be faithful with what precious time has been given us. This world will end, this time will change, you will come into my life and you will go...

but one thing is certain and that is His face.

I cling to it and the hope that is in it as

life goes on...

Is it possible to both love and hate healing? I am so thankful to be moving on yet, a part of me is broken that I am leaving this room and preparing to open another door. I feel that it is my duty to remain in this room... yet, You are leaving this room and I want to be where You are.

Oh, please don't leave this room... I know you say it's time but I long for just one last look,

last touch,

last memory.

It's not that I think this is better. Oh, I know where You go only grows in beauty and amazement. Yet, this time was so tender and so precious to me.

I know I can carry it in my heart but I long to just remain but a second.

Oh, God! Life goes on...

I rush around this room, desperate to remember how it felt to be loved, to be friends, to laugh, and to grieve...

but You are going on

with one last look, I take this room with me in my heart but no longer on my shoulders and God, if you go on... then I embrace that, too

my life goes on...

5 comments:

Jer said...

jo, your poem overwhelmed me with emotions. it is SO good. thank you for sharing it

Ed said...

I think of all those times I wanted to stay ... and Something, or SomeOne just moved me on.

I'm old enough now to see that what is behind me is a good indication of what is just ahead.

I'm an old hobo of Grace - a pilgrim with his thumb stuck out to God ...

I have acquired this appetite to say "carry me on from here" even while I linger at the world's scream for me to just sit down in a heap and work on my retirement ... take no more risks ... and just say 'I've done my thing'.

Hell be advised: I haven't even started. I think that is some kind of warning. I don't know - I'm not drivin'.

What I see is something like this:

I can't sit and watch my body turn to dust, or give my mind to fossilize into some blind vise.

I refuse to regard my soul as some meaningless swirl of atoms accidentally flung together by an immaterial anomoly ... and I don't want my heart to turn to stone ... which means - and it's been a long road for me to learn this - that I have to embrace the pain of letting go, to go on.

If I had stayed ...

I'd still be in my little hometown - happy (and fat) as a clam, and as isolated from the world.

I went on.

I met a girl. I found love.
We had a son. We found a home.
He got a brother. They had another.
Then they got a real princess come to rule over them.

Every place I left, part of me stayed and part of it came along; to never leave.

Just this morning I wept for the pure joy of knowing Ben Espeseth. That's the truth. It happened right in my downstairs bathroom.

At his funeral I remembered his words about Bob, his son, who parted long before he did: 'Part of me died when Bob died.'

It wasn't for sadness. It was for joy as far above 'sad' as the heavens are above the earth. It was bigger than sad. It was triumph.

We're going on. But what we leave behind we will find again. That is the most certain thing I know. But the way I've learned that is going on.

We think what we've left is gone, and uncertainty is ahead. But that's precisely backwards: We came from nowhere, but where we are going is Home.

Kelli B said...

I love you Schupbachs. Love you so deeply. You have hearts and minds that are DEEP and it invites. It INVITES me in. To sit at your feet! Because waht you have to say is driven from an experience of Jesus, a passion and zeal for something so Great and Mighty.

I've been reading Captivating, and just finished the part where she talks about how beauty INVITES and gives GRACE. Your family does this.

I love to read your words...

Thanks for encouraging. I feel overcome w/ emotions as well. Deeply. I dont even know why. Part grief. Part joy. Part understanding. Part overwhelmed. Part wanting more.

Thank you Schupbachs. Thank you.

Kelli B said...

Oh man. BEAUTIFUL JOANNA. YOu have a gift of writing. A huge GIFT.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Jo for sharing your heart. It is beautiful. I wish i could be in your captivating presence and hear you share about life and love in Jesus more often. But this was a blessing and I am thankful. No matter how comforting it is to stay in the places we have come to know as "home"... as if we will never be called out of it, His love and longing for us to be with Him is greater. Keep following Him. Love you Jojo!