This is the final poem in my first collection, entitled Findings: My Journey to Joy. The flow of poems in that book spoke to finding who I was and what I was about after being divorced. I started writing the poems a couple years before the divorce, and published the book a couple years afterwards, so it spans transitional times. ‘Full Circle’ sums up the chaotic and doubtful time when I tried many ways to fill my emptiness without satisfaction. Not until I began reading the Psalms did I find what was missing. It was my relationship with Jesus, newly rekindled by David’s poetry, that filled the hole in my soul. The Psalms restarted my heart and drew me into reading more and more about the God I hardly knew, who watched me from the shadows, whispering my name.
Take note of the movement in this poem, as well as all the references to circles and circular motion. My life at that time was twisting in and around itself until I sometimes didn’t know if I was coming or going. I doubted myself, my capabilities, my decisions and my value.
Then God got a hold of my heart and gave me a challenge to work for His purposes and a value in who I was according to Him and not according to what others said or intimated I was. He put me on the straight and narrow path directly to His heart, and I’ve been walking that pathway in peace ever since.
I understand how David could write these words:
“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” (Psalm 30:5,11-12 ESV)
Full Circle
Circles and cycles of glee and pain
Come full-circle to visit again
On-balance off-balance, up and down
Twisting, turning round and round
My head spinning for what to do about
Smoke rings of uncertainty, clouds of self-doubt
‘Til you came with your lifeline
Powerful life light
Your golden rope of eternal hope
A guide through good times and sorrow
Straight as an arrow here to forever
Never-ending, never bending
Direct to the heart of God
Lit by the glow of your loving
Being that inspires me to keep moving
Within the circle of Your Will
You wreathed my neck with your loving arms
Lifting my face to your Glory warm
My once-feeble, flickering flame Replaced
By God’s life-light garland in Jesus’ name
Wrapped tightly now around my heart and soul
Assured of forever and forever made whole
Never again will I seek man’s approval
Only to be lost and torn
By fickle removal of my heart’s desire
Always remembering my soul’s awakening
To God’s own beckoning me to come
Latch onto the golden rope
Hold fast to hope along my journey
Of lasting joy–into eternity
My Father, you are my one ray of hope in this troubled world. Your word gives me strength and lights my days with promise. There is no other before you, because You are my all in all, Lord. You are my alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, my bright Morning Star. You have called me by my name to come out of the pit and step into your light, your marvelous light. You call me beloved forever. You go before me and prepare the way. You are Jesus, Messiah, God with us. I praise you in your holy name above all names, according to your good and perfect will. Amen