Pieces of the puzzle

Have you ever worked a puzzle? I'd say most of us have, if not as an adult, certainly in school when we were kids. You know what I hated the most about puzzles that other people had worked before? Missing pieces, or worse yet, pieces that don't even belong with the puzzle you're working.

As some of you might know, my Dad had a stroke three weeks ago. Praise God it wasn't one that caused a brain bleed, but because of the delay in getting him into the hospital, he was unable to receive the medicine that busts clots within four hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. So what he has is a clot in a micro-artery in the middle of his left brain somewhere. That aside, the stroke did its usual damage. There is memory loss, both long term and short term, although that's hit or miss, and what we call "filters" are now missing...filters that made him who he was, controlled his temperament, and speech, and parts of his brain were damaged...the parts that control some of his gross motor skills like writing and walking steadily.

There's something else that has come out of this situation...The realization that our lives are all puzzles, and the pieces are our lives,  and how on earth do they all fit together.

I have to admit that I've been spending the better part of the last three weeks in constant whiny/needy/crabby/ I-don't-want-to-do-this-anymore mode. I've been discussing, although I know right now its a one sided affair, with God the fact that I can't be in two places at once...I can't make Dad behave from the million miles I am away from him and Mom...that I can't bear the cost of the move that needs to be made...that I can't get down there to sell what needs to be sold, put the house up on the market, pack up the place...I just can't. And God is faithful, He's listened to every word and as of this writing, I'm still breathing, so I'm assuming I haven't said anything that's angered Him. I may have made Him roll His eyes a time or two, but at least, as far as I can tell, I'm still in His good graces.

This morning, we are studying the book of Galatians in Sunday School and some interesting things came to mind. Probably not even within the structure of what we were studying, but they came to mind anyway.

What happens when we begin to work on a jigsaw puzzle? We open the box and dump the pieces out, and not all of them are right side up. So, we diligently go through and turn all of them right side up so we can see the portion of the picture printed on the piece, but that in and of itself does not tell you how all of the pieces fit together. It takes time, patience and concentration to get all of the pieces in the correct order to complete the picture. When we are missing pieces or there are pieces that don't belong, it makes the process longer, frustrating, and sometimes we just want to give up.
The same thing happens in our lives. We may have a puzzle set out before us of mixed up puzzle pieces; school, job; family; children; grandchildren; parents, and not all of them are evident at first. It's only when we flip that piece over to see the colors that we get a hint of where it goes in our lives.
When we get a section together, say graduation from school, we shout out a "woot!" and move to the next section. Sometimes, though, the next section isn't as easy...the colors are all the same in that section of our puzzle picture and the pieces are similar enough to frustrate the hoozitz out of you. You fume at the complexity of it all, then maybe wonder why you even started the puzzle in the first place, maybe you should have tried something simpler. But as you work the pieces, and maybe with some help from Someone else, you're able to get a seemingly impossible section completed. Finally, when you're at the end of the "puzzle" you find the one critical piece to making it complete is missing...maybe it was left out of the box, or whoever worked it before lost it, or the dog ate it. Whatever it is, the piece is missing. You've just come to the end of working your hiney off all to find out you're missing one small piece.

Let's take a look at this from a life standpoint. You work all your life to achieve...achieve the motor skills needed to get going in life. Achieve the knowledge to get through school. Achieve the position you want or need to be able to live on your own. Achieve the perfect mate (or the not so perfect mate). Achieve the perfect family, house, car, financial status. Achieve retirement. Our whole lives we look to set to achieve the next section or goal. And yet, if we set our sights on what we will achieve next, without setting our eyes on Jesus, we will come to the end of our puzzle with a piece missing, and that piece will be hidden by the devil to keep you from the completion. He knows that once everything is said and done that he will not be a part of God's Eternal Kingdom, and he wants to take as many folks as he can with him to his punishment, which is eternal damnation.

When I sat back and looked at my conversation with God from the last three weeks, I noticed a couple of things...first, I had the "pieces" face up, so to speak. I have in front of me the fact that my parents are too far away for me to be much good to them in an emergency. The fact that they are older and because they are in their sunset years, things start wearing out or malfunction altogether. The fact that they have a huge house to be gone through and packed up and sold, not to mention finding them something here that they will enjoy that won't be a massive burden to them. The fact that they aren't getting any younger and eventually it will be completely up to me to make sure that they are healthy, and secure and taken care of, like they did me and my brother as we were growing up. But all I could really see, before God pointed these things out is the "I can'ts" that I kept throwing out there. Somewhere today I heard (whether it was conversation overheard or otherwise, or within my own thoughts), "with man nothing is possible, with God, all things are possible..."

As I proverbially look at all of my pieces on the table, some are still turned over, some sections are put together and some pieces are right side up, waiting for the time where I put them in the proper place in my puzzle. I don't know what's on the pieces that are upside down, that's for a time when another section of my puzzle is worked. I don't even necessarily know what I'm to do with the pieces that I can see and identify as a part of the ongoing section I'm working on now, but this I know...all of the pieces are there because I have Christ as my Savior. He is helping me work this puzzle I call life. He is helping me put each piece in it's proper place. He is the One who will help me see it to completion. I can say "I can't," or "I won't," or "I don't want to," all I want, but the fact is, the puzzle is still being worked and eventually all of the pieces will fit together. Then I will be able to look into His smiling face as He tells me, "We did it. Isn't it beautiful?"

Please pray for my family as we go through this time in our "puzzle," where we don't know exactly how all of the pieces fit, or where they even go. Please pray for eyes to see, ears to hear, feet and hands to work, and the strength to get it all done.
Thank you, everyone for bearing with me even when I seem to go in tight little circles. You are all a blessing to me.

Have a wonderful, blessed week.