It's a Puzzle!

While adjusting to our new environment in Bismarck, one of the tools used during the time of transition was the assembling of a puzzle.  For me, it was therapeutic to focus my brain on the task of putting the pieces together when everything else in my life was somewhat of a jumble.  Over the course of the first week the picture gradually came together.


                          

 

                          

 

 

 

 

            

There is something so satisfying about completing a puzzle.  What starts as a pile of random pieces, slowly develops into a picture.  The process usually starts with finding the edge pieces.  Then, depending on the picture, you can focus on particular areas based on color.  Not all at once, but methodically over time the final product is revealed. 

For many years, while I was working, I took time on the weekends to write "Saturday Seeking" devotionals to send to family and friends.  I would look back on my week and seek to find something God was teaching me through my everyday experiences.  Even now, four years into retirement, I find myself looking for these "God Lessons" in the things I occupy my time with, and so it was the lessons in a puzzle started forming in my head.

When we are born, we find ourselves deposited on earth in the neat and tidy form of a baby.  This is what I would equate to the beginning pile of puzzle pieces.  Psalm 139 tells me "all the days planned for me were written in God's Book before one of them came to be".  And so it is, our "life story" has a unique picture in God's eyes, waiting to be assembled as the years go by.

The process of sorting out the edge pieces reminds me of verses in Acts 17:26-28.  These verses reveal God has a special time set for my life, and even the "bounds of habitation" (according to the King James Version) have been established.  Yes, the picture of my life has certain borders.  So far, my life has spanned 60 years and most of my bounds of habitation have been centered in North Dakota.

Each day of my life is like one of the puzzle pieces, waiting to find its proper place in the picture created over the course of my lifetime.  There are times, like this week-end, I try to make a "piece" fit which God has determined is not right according to His plan.  Since we have a few days off from the Legislature this week, we had talked about driving to South Dakota for a few days, and then stopping to pick up the grandkids, bringing them back to Crosby for an overnighter.  What happened instead was an attack by a "stomach bug" which left my husband in no shape for travel or grandkids.  I guess this is why James 4:13-15 is included in the Bible!

Come now, you who say,

“Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city,

spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow!

What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.

It was disappointing to experience the change in plans, but who knows what God's purpose was in changing them.  Perhaps He saved us from experiencing a tragic car accident, or simply knew this was not a good time for the grandkids to be away from their parents.  When things don't go as planned, I have learned to trust my Heavenly Father knows best.

When will the picture of my life be complete?  Only God knows.  Until then, I will continue to allow Him to fill in the pieces and do my best to leave behind a picture He would be proud to display!