One Piece of the Puzzle

Grasping one piece of a puzzle tightly in her stubby fingers, my daughter wailed, “Mommy! Help me! I don’t know where this goes!”

I gently bent down in the floor with her and took the puzzle piece out of her hand. “Let’s see what you’ve got so far.” She’d completed about a third of her Little Mermaid puzzle but was stuck on where this one piece should go.

I reached over and picked up the puzzle box, which revealed the entire completed picture. Looking at her one piece, I tried to show her how it would fit into the top right portion of her puzzle.

After several attempts, my daughter finally found the place for her piece of the puzzle. Giggling with delight, she said, “I see it now! It’s almost done, Mommy!”

Curling up on the couch to continue watching my daughter, I felt a gentle whisper tugging on my heart.

Lisa, your daughter’s frustration with the puzzle piece is how my children act when life doesn’t make sense.

You only see a small part of my purpose and plan for your life. You have to trust me because I’m the one who holds the puzzle box with the completed picture.

Wow. My eyes were opened wide to this astounding truth as I continued watching my child finish her puzzle.

How often do we feel stuck in our journey of life? Like a frustrated child, we throw up our hands, wailing out to God, “I don’t understand! This doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what to do.”

Just imagine God looking over at His completed picture of our lives. Maybe he smiles and says, “I can’t wait for her to see where the next piece goes. What a day it will be when she sees the whole picture.”

In the meantime, we have to wait. We have to trust. We have to surrender our urge to see the entire completed picture NOW.

I had access to the puzzle box with the completed picture to help my daughter. But in our faith journey, we don’t get to hold the puzzle box. Only God has that power.

So instead, we must trust that he sees and knows. Along the way with each step, God will give us strength and wisdom to handle the piece of the puzzle we currently hold. He longs for us to cry out to him. He loves to watch us giggle with delight when we finally see something that once was unclear become clear.

Some pieces of our life puzzle will make sense to us while we walk this earth. But others will not. And for those unknown pieces, we can look forward to a day when we see him face-to-face. When it all will make sense. When all will be well.

As a little child maybe we’ll say something like this:

“I see it now! It’s all done!”

1 Corinthians 13:12(NLT)  Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Blessings to you!

Lisa Preuett