Puzzled

Puzzled: Fitting Together the Pieces of Our Lives
By Brittany Shields

Today my two-year old, Emmy, decided to do a 16 piece puzzle. It’s a bit above her ability level. I watched her put all the pieces in a pile. She plucked one out and laid it on the cardboard surface. She picked another piece and jammed it into the first one. She tried every direction, but the two pieces did not fit together.

The idea that the two pieces she picked out didn’t go together was very confusing and frustrating to her little mind. She did not realize that there might be other pieces that go in between them. She couldn’t see the bigger picture; she just knew it didn’t work the way she wanted it to and she was not having it. She threw the pieces back in the pile and found a new activity.

I took it all in and felt a little convicted.

I think a lot of times we look at our lives like a puzzle. We think we know what the picture should look like. We think we know how the pieces should fit together. When we pick up a new piece for our puzzle we assume it will fit right into all the other pieces we already have. Why wouldn’t it?

But is it possible our puzzles are a bit above our comprehension level?

Sometimes we find ourselves with a piece that does not immediately fit into our puzzle. We try our darndest to jam it in every way we can think of, but it doesn’t work. It must not belong, we think.

Or we find ourselves with a piece we don’t really like the look of. It’s not the right color or shape for the picture we think we are creating. We don’t want that piece.

Like Emmy with her pieces, we get frustrated and we think we will just get rid of ones that don’t fit, are too hard to figure out, or that make us mad.

But.

What if God created our puzzle? What if we don’t get to decide what pieces go in it or in what order? What if the picture we think we are fashioning is not what God has designed for us?

What if God sometimes gives us a piece, seemingly unfit or unmatched to the picture in our minds, because He wants us to just hold on to it for a bit? To wait.

What if He plans to give us some other pieces and eventually, when we’ve accumulated a few more, a place will emerge where it fits right in?

So what are these pieces?

They are times of pain, grief, and suffering. They are people who hurt us, make us mad, or are just hard to relate to.

They are change. New jobs, new homes, new places.

They are loss. Decreased finances, decreasing health, estranged and strained relationships.

They are fights, tears, scars, and accidents.

They are the right place but the wrong time. The right time but the wrong place.

They are grays and blues when we want greens and yellows.

They are sharp and dangerous when we want round and safe.

They are the unexpected. The inconvenient. The worst. The challenging.

Who wants a puzzle with any of that? Who wants to do a puzzle where you don’t start off with all the pieces and you can’t look at the picture on the box?

We sure don’t.

[Especially if you don’t like to do puzzles in the first place, in which case this analogy may have fallen flat with you thus far and I extend my apologies. I’m going to go ahead and assume you can still appreciate the underlying meaning even if the activity is distressing to you!]

We want to make our own puzzle. We think we have a pretty good idea of what will work out and look good.

But look outside. Look at the trees that change color, the mountains that pierce the sky, water that never stops, stars that are light years away, a star close enough to keep us warm.

Look inside. Look at our bodies that heal themselves, our brains that imagine and wonder, wombs that can create and deliver new life, hearts that burst with unfathomable love for other people.

Could you have created that? Out of nothing? I couldn’t. I’m an artist and what I create is a scribble compared to the work of our Creator. Moreover, I didn’t even create what I’m using to create!

Is it possible that our all-knowing and all-powerful Creator of all things beautiful could have a better puzzle for us than we could ever imagine? Is it possible that the pieces we don’t like or can’t figure out could eventually all fit together to make the most beautiful work of art?

I think it is highly possible.

Actually, I think it is certain.

Because God tells us so.

While I’m sprawled on the floor jamming and throwing pieces left and right, God steps in and says, ‘Hold on. You need those. I know you don’t think so and I know some of them hurt to hold. But trust me. In a little while you’ll be able to let go of them. To fit them into an empty space and see their beauty. Some of them you might have to hold for a long time, but I’ll help you. Because I love you. Every single piece I give you will be worth what you see in the end. Better than anything you could fathom.’

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:17-18)

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:9)

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10)

“For those who love God, all things work together for good, for those called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.” (Hab. 3:17-19)

“whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:20)

“I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’… I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” (Isa. 46:10-11)

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

“though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.” (Lam 3:32-33)

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pt 3:6-9)

This is only a small sampling of what God has to say about his plan for us, His love for us, and His plan to make us holy as He is holy. He is in the business of making all things beautiful. And who are we to question the Creator and Author?

In his book, ‘If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil’, Randy Alcorn says, “To say that God is good is not to say God will always appear to be good, or that when he is good we will always like him for it…. God can be good without being safe; he can be loving without bowing to our every wish or desire.”

So we trust God, our puzzle-maker. We take the pieces He gives us. We connect the ones we can and with His help we hold the ones we can’t. We wait. And we take heart. God never leaves a puzzle unfinished.

If we stand firm on the unchanging truths of the Bible and the promises of our good, supreme Father, it’s not so puzzling after all.