My broken dreams
and abilities
seemed to fall
piece by piece
like fragments slipping
from a shattered mirror.
 
I had begun to mourn
the passage of the person
I had thought myself to be.

It had started well,
   my living with infirmity.
I’d said, “It’s okay, Lord,
   and felt I’d meant it.
He’d promised to show His strength
   in weakness.
I was willing to have it be
   His strength
   that showed.
We had an unique closeness
   in those days.

I didn’t mind limiting
activities
      to save my strength
      for things I had to do.

I had prayed to be a good wife and mother.
And very specially I had asked
   to be kept
   sweet and loving
   all my days.
 
Then I was shattered
by people who kindly told me
that rejoicing in illness
and “holding on to it”
requires a “sick mentality,”
and if I weren’t healed
   I wasn’t “believing right.”
 
I thought I’d learned
   my earlier lessons well:
   That God could be glorified
       even as He subtracts
       what He allows to be removed.
    I thought that God
       was putting me in a quiet place
       to read His Word
       and commune with Him.
          Perhaps I could learn
             to write
             for Him.
 
At first
   I had known
   definitely that
   He would care for me—
      —no matter what.

The came Phase Two with its
   miserable comforters
who carelessly smashed my serenity.

Then came the depression
   and the sense of
   —being nothing.
  
It’s almost funny.
Long ago I’d asked the Lord
   to make me nothing
      if that is what it takes
      to be used effectively by Him.
 
I hadn’t realized
   I was
   pretty nearly
      nothing
      when I asked.
But now that I am less—

                          I hate it!

What happened to my prayer
   for sweetness and love?
Super sensitivity to
   daily things
does not enhance
my hampered vision
   or my fading image
      of becoming
      more Christ-like.
I don’t want to be
   some
   kind
of touchy person.

I’d rather not “be” at all...

I can’t go on like this.
	
Lord,
I know broken pieces
are valuable to You.
Your disciples
gathered fragments
of loaves and fishes
“that nothing should be lost”
after You fed a multitude.



I’ll gather the fragments
of my shattered image
and bring them to You.



Lord,
please remake
them into
a reflection
of Your glory.

© 1972 Nancy Spiegelberg

Scriptures:
John 6
11   And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given 
thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the 
disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of 
the fishes as much as they would.
12   When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, 
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be 
lost.
13   Therefore they gathered them together, and filled 
twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley 
loaves, which remained over and above unto them that 
had eaten.
14   Then those men, when they had seen the miracle 
that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet
that should come into the world.

Romans 8:29
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate 
to be conformed to the image of his Son...