Psalm 19

I’ve never really enjoyed jig saw puzzles. Those 1000 piece puzzles where all of the colors and shapes start looking alike drive me crazy, plus for me they take forever. I don’t enjoy having something “unfinished” spread out all over a table for weeks on end waiting to be solved. It feels and looks like a mess to me and I don’t enjoy the clutter. Plus, when and if you do finish the puzzle, it bothers me that the picture is marred with all of the connection lines from the individual pieces. The frustrating part to me is finding a piece that is the right color and seeming correct shape only to discover that it doesn’t quite fit. At that point my frustration level leads me to just pound that “sucker” in till it does fit. Then, what do you do with it? You simply pull it apart and put it back in a box on a shelf. Obviously, you are now saying…whoa….way too obsessive! Get over it, just stay away from jig saw puzzles…simple solution. You are right….but, at times life feels like my own personal jig saw puzzle and I can’t just throw it back in the box and put it on the shelf. I am in it for the long haul. I totally believe that my God is in control and knows exactly how the pieces of my life fit perfectly together. My frustration with that is I don’t always know. I know the process has a purpose, but I don’t always enjoy the process. It is like the lyrics from a song by The Fray. “Sometimes the hardest things and the right things are the same.”

Sometimes I just cry out to Him and say, “Can’t you just tell me which piece to put in now so I can move on?” I keep trying pieces that just don’t fit. They seem so right, but for some reason they just don’t work out. Then there are other pieces laying there that are perfect, they are an obvious fit to the puzzle of my life. But, I can’t put them in yet because the pieces that join them to the rest of the picture aren’t in place yet. I have those pieces in my life now…sitting…waiting. I look at those pieces and I am just so anxious to get them in place. I know they fit. They are beautiful; they are the perfect shape and color for this picture of my life. Sometimes I get really scared that I will loose those pieces, that they will disappear or go away. I don’t want to take matters into my own hands and out of my impatience with the process “pound them into place” too soon. I just want to get to enjoy the picture, or at least enjoy the part of the picture that contains those pieces. In the meantime, I will anxiously anticipate that moment when I finally get to place those beautifully treasured pieces into the puzzle called my life. At that point I won’t even notice all of those connection lines that seemingly marred the picture because I will be immersed in the enjoyment of the fulfillment of a dream.