I absolutely love jigsaw puzzles!
At my old house, I never created space for my puzzles. Instead, I played virtually on my laptop or my tablet. And frankly, it just wasn’t the same as holding puzzle pieces in my hands. Kind of like books. Sometimes you just need the ones you can touch. So when I became a homeowner, I realized I had a table and a space that was being under used. For the time being, it’s my jigsaw place. It’s where I unwind. It’s where I do my bible studies. It’s where I set up for virtual meetings and adjust my camera so they can’t see what I’m actually working on! For me, the joy and the relaxation actually comes in building the puzzle up from piece one to completion. I’ve learned so many things through the process of puzzle building. So, I want to share some insights puzzles have granted me into spiritual living.
If you’ve ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle, then you undoubtedly had a battle strategy. Depending on the type of puzzle you have, you might start with the border. Once you have that outline, the rest is usually child’s play, right? Or if you have something more complex, just tackling the border might not be that helpful. Maybe you separate your pieces by color or something else identifiable. Any way to help get the party started. This puzzle here was one of my more complex. Just tackling the border wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere. So, it’s one of those puzzles where I had to develop a different tactic. As you can see, it was a lot of tan and brown. Also, the shapes of the pieces were unconventional.
One pandemic shut down day, some friends and I started meeting weekly to pray together and just have a little girl chat. We did this via Zoom while working on our puzzles. One meeting, each of us appeared to hit a roadblock with the puzzles we were working on. I was working on the one above. Multiple times, I wanted to give up, scrap it, and start a different puzzle! After an extended drought of fitting pieces together, one of my friends finally found a match! It turned out that she had that missing piece in her hand the entire time. It was that looking for the glasses that are on top of your head type of moment. The funny thing is, she tried to fit that piece in before. When it didn’t work, she forgot about it. Eventually, the time floated around for her to try fitting the piece again. But when it didn’t fit that time, she flipped it around and discovered she had the piece turned the wrong way. After her victory screech, she said one word that has stuck with me. Perspective. Every time now when I’m working on my puzzles, I hear that word and it’s a reminder that sometimes I need to look at it from a different angle.
When it comes to working on puzzles, it’s all about the process. But so many people try to rush it. Have you ever been guilty of trying to force a piece that simply will not fit? That piece that doesn’t belong will throw off your entire puzzle, causing delays and slowing down your progress. That’s why it’s so important for us in our daily lives to simply trust God’s process. When we try to do things on our own, we’re like those puzzlers that are trying to force fit pieces where they don’t belong just because we want the finished product. Process requires time. So even with the things that we may all be praying for in our lives right in this moment, take the time to embrace the process. Trust what God is doing. Why would he give us anything less than who he is?
Don’t rush it! One day you’ll be able to sit back and reflect on your before and after moment. And when you do, remember the frustration, the impatience, and even the tears. But also remember your determination and perseverance. Because when another moment like this one comes around again, we can all remember the value of simply trusting God through the process and it will make that road we're all on just a little bit brighter.
Stay Sunny!
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