Life's Puzzling Ways
In my family, we have this unofficial holiday tradition of putting together puzzles over the holiday season. Usually, we put together a 1,000 piece Charles Wysocki jigsaw puzzle. Typically, a Wysocki puzzle features a small town from 18th or 19th century, at least one American flag, horses, an excessive amount of wheels, and pesky sky pieces that are hard to put together because they all look the same. Sure enough, after a few hours, sometimes days, the puzzle all comes together and the final piece get puts in. In some instances, a piece or two is missing (even after checking the floor and box), and we have to settle for completing a 998 piece jigsaw puzzle.
In the 1994 classic film Forrest Gump, Forrest's mom famously said that life was like a box of chocolates. Her reasoning, of course, was because you never know what you're going to get. All these years later, that quote still rings true today. Heck, when I was in 5th grade, the vice principal at a middle school visited us and even made that same "box of chocolates" analogy about middle school. However, a box of chocolates isn't the only thing that life is like. Life is also like a jigsaw puzzle.
Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. It takes a long time to complete and the overall picture gets clearer as it progresses. There's pieces all over the place, too. While we have a good idea where some of those puzzle pieces go or what they're a part of, there's some that we have no earthly idea what to do with. There's some that we convince ourselves are from a different puzzle and don't belong. Sometimes, we even find two pieces and are convinced that they go together and fit, only to realize that they don't. There's other pieces that we're convinced don't exist, but find nonetheless. In some instances though, there are missing puzzle pieces. There are those pesky missing pieces that we look for all over the place, but never do find. But at the end of the day, it's important to remember the fun and memories along the way that came with it.
In our lives, we each have our own individual "puzzles" that we're working on and "pieces" that we're looking for. These pieces include friends, relationships, financial stability, solutions to personal struggles, experiences, dreams, goals, and so forth. We may spend our lives looking for these pieces. There may be times we think we have them, only to realize they don't fit. There are times we may be convinced that we'll never find them or that they don't exist, but we find them when we least expect them. As things progress though and we get towards the end, the picture gets increasingly clearer.
That said, there are going to be some "puzzles" in our lives that we don't complete and some "pieces" that we don't find. That does not entirely have to be a bad thing, though.
One of my favorite puzzles that I've ever done was one that my friends and I didn't come close to finishing. During spring break my freshman year at Baylor, I went on a trip with my church to Edinburg,Texas, a town in the Rio Grande Valley about 20 miles from the Texas-Mexico border. There was one afternoon we were helping clean up a church and sure enough, we came across this fascinating puzzle that had pictures of Jesus' miracles and parables. While this was admittedly not the most productive thing to do, a few of us worked on that puzzle for a bit, even when it became clear there were plenty of pieces missing. We didn't come close to finishing that puzzle, yet we were thrilled to have found and worked on it. It was always more about the fun we had while putting it together with one another than it was about finishing the puzzle (see picture below).
For those that may not know, one personal goal I have is to visit all 50 states. This past week, I went up to Kansas for a few days and crossed another state off the list and added another piece to that puzzle. I'm still missing a few pieces to that puzzle (more specifically Alaska, Hawai'i, and Rhode Island), but I'm looking forward to the day it's complete. And while the end goal is to complete this puzzle, it always will be more about the individual pieces and adventures along the way while completing it. As we look to complete those puzzles in our lives, let us not get so caught up in looking for the pieces that we forget to have a wonderful time along the way. When it all does get pieced together, it will be a beautiful picture accomplished along the way with some great people.
In the 1994 classic film Forrest Gump, Forrest's mom famously said that life was like a box of chocolates. Her reasoning, of course, was because you never know what you're going to get. All these years later, that quote still rings true today. Heck, when I was in 5th grade, the vice principal at a middle school visited us and even made that same "box of chocolates" analogy about middle school. However, a box of chocolates isn't the only thing that life is like. Life is also like a jigsaw puzzle.
Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. It takes a long time to complete and the overall picture gets clearer as it progresses. There's pieces all over the place, too. While we have a good idea where some of those puzzle pieces go or what they're a part of, there's some that we have no earthly idea what to do with. There's some that we convince ourselves are from a different puzzle and don't belong. Sometimes, we even find two pieces and are convinced that they go together and fit, only to realize that they don't. There's other pieces that we're convinced don't exist, but find nonetheless. In some instances though, there are missing puzzle pieces. There are those pesky missing pieces that we look for all over the place, but never do find. But at the end of the day, it's important to remember the fun and memories along the way that came with it.
In our lives, we each have our own individual "puzzles" that we're working on and "pieces" that we're looking for. These pieces include friends, relationships, financial stability, solutions to personal struggles, experiences, dreams, goals, and so forth. We may spend our lives looking for these pieces. There may be times we think we have them, only to realize they don't fit. There are times we may be convinced that we'll never find them or that they don't exist, but we find them when we least expect them. As things progress though and we get towards the end, the picture gets increasingly clearer.
That said, there are going to be some "puzzles" in our lives that we don't complete and some "pieces" that we don't find. That does not entirely have to be a bad thing, though.
One of my favorite puzzles that I've ever done was one that my friends and I didn't come close to finishing. During spring break my freshman year at Baylor, I went on a trip with my church to Edinburg,Texas, a town in the Rio Grande Valley about 20 miles from the Texas-Mexico border. There was one afternoon we were helping clean up a church and sure enough, we came across this fascinating puzzle that had pictures of Jesus' miracles and parables. While this was admittedly not the most productive thing to do, a few of us worked on that puzzle for a bit, even when it became clear there were plenty of pieces missing. We didn't come close to finishing that puzzle, yet we were thrilled to have found and worked on it. It was always more about the fun we had while putting it together with one another than it was about finishing the puzzle (see picture below).
For those that may not know, one personal goal I have is to visit all 50 states. This past week, I went up to Kansas for a few days and crossed another state off the list and added another piece to that puzzle. I'm still missing a few pieces to that puzzle (more specifically Alaska, Hawai'i, and Rhode Island), but I'm looking forward to the day it's complete. And while the end goal is to complete this puzzle, it always will be more about the individual pieces and adventures along the way while completing it. As we look to complete those puzzles in our lives, let us not get so caught up in looking for the pieces that we forget to have a wonderful time along the way. When it all does get pieced together, it will be a beautiful picture accomplished along the way with some great people.
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