Puzzle

Last week I was doing a puzzle with a two year old. Yes, a disaster waiting to happen right? Well as I watched him try to fit the pieces in where they didn't belong, not paying any attention to the box or the rest of the puzzle to see where it really fits, I realized how hard it is to do a puzzle without the picture on the box. And I realized, that's life.

Life is like a puzzle. There are all these little pieces that, when put together, create the big picture, God’s Plan for our lives. But the difference between the puzzle of life and the actual puzzle is that we don't get to see the picture on the box. Only God knows what that picture looks like and we just have to trust that he will show us where the pieces go.

When I do a puzzle I like to know exactly where a piece fits in before I try it anywhere. I look at the colors, the shape, and I compare it to the picture on the box. I want to know exactly where it goes before I go ahead and put it in. The other day I realized that I do this with life too. I have all these pieces. A random place, a person, a potential job, countless ideas, but I don’t know how they all fit together yet, so I don’t move on any of them. I don’t try to fit them in because I can’t quite see where they go yet. I've realized that's both good and bad. Good because it forces me to be patient and not try to force pieces in where they don't belong. Bad because if I never try it I'll never know if it fits or not. It's a balance I'm currently working on.

This past month some of those pieces started to fall right into place. The picture kept making more sense. A place, a job, a plan. I felt like God was showing me what my picture was going to look like. So I started fitting all the pieces in. Getting ahead of myself. Not realizing that, perhaps, I was cramming pieces in before they were supposed to go there. Then it was like the two year old I was doing the puzzle with last week swept all the pieces onto the floor (which he actually did by the way).

The job fell through, moving no longer possible, my plan was in pieces. My life no longer made any sense. The pieces were scattered on the floor and, honestly, I was in absolutely no hurry to try to pick them up again. For days I just stared at them in shock, wishing they could go from scattered on the floor back onto the table all by themselves. But I know that isn't how it works. I knew I should start picking them up and start putting the puzzle back together again. But at the time, I was perfectly content just leaving them right where they were. Until yesterday.

When things fall apart it's ok to have some time to just stare at the mess on the floor and process what happened. As long as you know you do need to clean up the mess eventually. So today I started gathering together those pieces. Admittedly soaking them in some salty tears, but I started. And that is what is important.

And as I go I am reevaluating some of the pieces I had put aside. Wondering if perhaps it's one of those goals I need to be pursuing right now. I’ve talked before about how there is a reason for everything. Each thing is a piece of the puzzle, we just don’t necessarily know where it fits until much later in our lives. Or, sometimes, we can see where it goes right away. Either way, you need all the pieces to finish the puzzle. Even the ones that look like they don’t fit. I have quite a few pieces that don't seem to fit right now. But maybe these are the ones I should be looking at.

My plan, what I wanted my picture to look like, just wasn't what it was supposed to be right now. Maybe in the future, but not right this minute. I realize that now, but I wish I had realized that before the pieces got swept off the table. But I am picking up the pieces and I'm attempting to put them back together. And I'm going to try to not be like that two year old and try to fit pieces where they don't belong. I'm going to trust that God, the artist of the picture on the puzzle, will show me where the pieces go when the time is right.