Life Is Like A Box of Puzzle Pieces
Someone was in my office not long ago lamenting that they weren’t sure where things in their life might go. She was looking for more assurances that her hopes and desires would be met but, as much as I wished I could offer that, I couldn’t do so honestly. Life has too many twists, turns, and surprises for all of us and I have no idea what that will be or where things will take her.
She told me of her unexpected journey thus far and how looking back made it even more curious. A few years ago, she had no idea that her current career path was even a possibility and now here she was, half-way through the training it would require. She commented that she was learning to trust God’s guidance but found it tricky to do.
I wondered whether the whole of this particular journey she found herself on would have been too much to take in at the beginning. Perhaps if the whole path had been illuminated, she would have shied away from even starting it.
This conversation came back to me while I was doing a jigsaw puzzle this week. I have to tell you that I love a jigsaw puzzle. I find the process of sorting through the pieces, turning them all around to see which one goes into the puzzle next, figuring out how they all fit together – I enjoy it all from start to finish.
I’ve been doing puzzles that contain 1,000 pieces - mostly because that is the size that will fit onto my coffee table. 1000 pieces is a lot of pieces! When I open the box, I can’t even see all of the pieces on their own because there are simply too many. I typically start rifling through the box to find the edge pieces since they have a flat edge in common. From there, I work on pulling out pieces that are of any one color, and then it’s just a continual process of sifting, sorting, and then trying to figure out where each piece goes.
I think our lives of faith are often like these puzzles and my friend’s journey. We may pick up a part in our lives (some knowledge, a friendship, a piece of scripture, even a place) and wonder how it fits in with all the rest of what we have. Sometimes it doesn’t fit or make sense just yet. Or perhaps it fits in with only one adjoining part, but the beauty of the whole isn’t visible to us just yet, though I suspect God has an idea of how these things may work together.
Toward the end of every puzzle, I wonder at the last 100 or so pieces. Often there is no way I could have anticipated where those last ones would go. In the beginning, I probably held some of these pieces trying to discern their place, but that place wouldn’t reveal itself to me until some of the surrounding pieces were ready for it. And then, of course, at the very end, I marvel at the beauty of the whole puzzle, how each piece fits perfectly with the ones surrounding it, and the picture that it creates.
Back in my office last month as we wrapped up the conversation my friend admitted that if God had shown her the whole path, it would have been overwhelming, and she’d have probably stopped before she started. As we parted, we agreed that the things God gives us are never lost, even if they don’t fit just yet. We also agreed that the only thing you can do is to pick up the next piece, see if it fits yet, and then keep going until we can see some of the larger picture, all the while trusting that God will guide each of us in our journeys.
