Praying Over the Pieces

This morning in my devotions I read this passage from Psalm 5 in "The Daily Message":


"Listen, God!  Please, pay attention!
  Can you make sense of these ramblings,
  my groans and my cries?
  King-God, I need your help.
Every morning
  you'll hear me at it again.
Every morning
  I lay out the pieces of my life
  on your alter
  and watch for the fire to descend."


While I do try to spend time in prayer every morning, with varying degrees of success, this passage made me think of it in a different way today.  At first the word "pieces" made me think of a broken thing, and that I should bring the broken pieces of my life to God and let him burn them away, or purify them with his fire somehow.  I thought of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and how the fire came down and consumed all of his offering.  Honestly, I thought it might be pretty sweet if God's fire would come down and consume some of the painful things in my life, so I could be free of them.  I made a list of the broken things in my life- actually, it was a partial list, as I didn't want the exercise to bring me to the Slough of Despond. (Once started I thought I could probably go on all day.)  Here are a few that made my list:  the pain of broken relationships and past hurts, real and imagined.  My people pleasing tendencies which, despite my best efforts, eventually manage to creep in to nearly everything I try to do for God.  My failures as a Wife and Mother. 

Then my thoughts turned, thanks to my husband, to the other "pieces" that make up my life- mostly my roles as a woman.  Wife, Mother, Mother-in-Law, Grandmother, Pastor's Wife, Woman, Sister, Friend, Teacher, Writer (of sorts), Sometime Speaker.  These are all part of the puzzle that come together to be me.
I thought I should offer those things to the Lord, also.  I need the fire of his Holy Spirit to descend on those things and enable me to be all of them for his Glory, to purify my motives and my efforts.

So, I spent some time in prayer this morning, offering God all these "pieces", these fragments of my life.  I prayed that his fire would fall, his purifying fire, his consuming fire, his enabling fire.  Did I see it come?  I'm not sure, but I expect it in his good time.   When I finished my prayer time, by the way, I felt surprisingly whole.