Puzzle Pieces

When everyone lit fireworksat the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, did you celebrate in vibrant cheer? Or did the clock’s chime bring a kind of melancholy as you silently pondered the future?

As the shouts of “Happy New Year” rang out, was it a joyful moment for you? Or was it tinged with anxiety about the future?

Last year, it was all a little hazy to me. We clinked our glasses and toasted one another with the usual buzz of a New Year’s celebration, but as I tossed in my bed later, I wondered what was in store for me.

I was excited about many future prospects; I knew that change was in the air. I was on a high and a low at the same time, and while on the verge of making decisions, couldn’t quite come to any.

The following days of uncertainty stretched into a week, then two. I pondered, procrastinated, and prayed. A lot. To no avail.

Then one day, a package arrived in the mail. Along with clothes and chocolates, my aunt had sent me a child’s puzzle. Amused, I laid it aside to give to my little brother.

When four-year-old RJ saw it, he excitedly took the box into another room to open. Soon, though, he was back—and he was in a frenzy.

“The puzzle has no picture!” he exclaimed. “You have to draw the picture!”

“What?”

“The puzzle has no picture!” RJ repeated.

Looking closer, I realized it was one of those do-it-yourself puzzles, and so, at RJ’s insistence, I drew a picture on the not-yet-disassembled puzzle. He was overjoyed.

Just when I thought he would leave me alone, RJ said, “Now you have to help me do it!”

He scattered the pieces on the floor, raked them into a pile, spread them out again, and sat there, arms crossed, cheerfully confident that I would do the work for him.

I hesitated, but eventually gave in. “Okay, we’ll do it together,” I said. “It’s easy!”

I had intended for RJ to color the picture before he took the puzzle apart, but he hadn’t. The pieces were a mess of black and white lines that didn’t seem to fit together. But RJ wouldn’t be deterred.

I showed him how to find the corner pieces first, then the edges, and then to hunt for pieces where elements of the picture were recognizable—eye pieces over here with nose pieces, leaf pieces with flower pieces, etc.

Bit by bit, it started to come together.

I watched as RJ slowly found and fitted each puzzle piece into its proper place. He sometimes shook his head in frustration. Other times he threw up his hands in exasperation and said aloud, “Aw, that doesn’t go here!”

And each time he was convinced there was something wrong with the puzzle itself. Time and again I had to reassure him that the pieces would indeed all fit together once he had each one in the right place.

“It’s all part of the same picture,” I would say. “We just need to find where it goes.”

It took a half hour before the picture of a cat playing in a garden was completed, but when it finally was, a look of smug satisfaction spread across RJ’s face.

I was smiling too, because right then I understood that I was like a little child, trying to sort out the puzzle pieces of my life, getting confused and frustrated, wanting to say I couldn’t do it.

All those pieces are part of the same puzzle, whispered a gentle inner voice that I have come to recognize as Jesus’. We just need to find where they go.

Just as I had sat with my little brother, hinting where pieces would fit, Jesus would sit with me as I sorted out this pile called my future.

There I was, trying to get rid of parts that didn’t seem to make sense, crying out in a fit of frustration that I didn’t know what went where. And there He was, all the time reassuring me that it was going to be okay, that all the pieces would come together. He could be certain of that because He was the artist who had drawn it. It would take time and I would have to be patient, but when all the pieces were finally in place, I too would smile with satisfaction.

And that’s just what happened. With a few more hints from Jesus, a few days before I sat down to write this story, the pieces all came together.

Today I look at the puzzle of the next year, and I am excited! Things are already beginning to fall into place. I’m sorting the corners and the edges. I’m seeing something unfold before my eyes. I have learned that all the pieces are needed.

And yes, it’s going to be a beautiful picture.

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Proverbs 16:9 ESV – The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Ephesians 2:10 ESV – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Jeremiah 1:5 ESV – “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”