Puzzle Pieces

I have a love-hate relationship with puzzles.

I enjoy them. Kind of. I love finishing them. Hate the process. It’s frustrating. It always sounds like a good idea but then once I get into it, I’m second-guessing my choice. 

I know the pieces go together, but I don't know how. I'm suppose to enjoy putting them together.  I force pieces to go together because I desperately want them to fit, but ultimately I know they don’t go there. I’m only fooling myself. 

There is a thought that crosses my mind every time I sit down to do a puzzle: There is a piece missing. I’ve got that one puzzle box that was shorted a piece and I’m not going to be able to finish this thing.

I start to put the pieces together and I really start to get somewhere. I’m on a roll. Things are good. And then all of the sudden, I hit a lull. A place where every piece I try—and I’m positive I have tried them all—doesn’t work. I can’t figure it out.

This sounds likes familiar territory—a place I’ve been many times in life. Overwhelmed. Confused. Not sure what is missing. I know all the pieces are there, but there is this nagging doubt at the back of my mind. 

There is a piece missing.  

But I’m learning that, just like with the puzzle, all the pieces are there. They are on the table. 

However, life has a way of blinding you. 

Sometimes the only pieces you can see are the one’s that don’t fit.  It’s easy to overlook the piece you need when you are dead set on trying to force the one you think fits. 

In this place of mismatched pieces and frustration over trying to figure it all out, God has whispered to this weary heart, "...When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 61:2b). 

The Rock that is higher than me. Higher. 

Higher sounds good when you are low. It sounds like a place I want to go. A place I can see from and get a better view of my surroundings.

I think of Him offering His hand to pull me up to this place of safety, up out of my doubts and questions about missing pieces. 

His answer for me His Presence. He wants me there with Him. 

But I’m learning that not only does He desire me to be with Him, similar to the way I want to be with my child when they are hurting, but also He has another purpose in me coming to the Rock. 

It is the combo of His presence plus His perspective. He wants to show me a few things while I’m up there. He has invited me up to be with Him, but also to help me to see what He sees. His perspective of all my life’s pieces—they ones that went together easy, the ones I’m forcing that just aren’t lining up, and the ones that I’m sure our missing.  It’s up here with Him that I can really see the pieces are all there (2 Peter 1:3).

It’s my limited sight that is the problem. I can’t see. I can’t understand. 

I see individual pieces. He sees a finished puzzle.  

I can’t visualize how they go together, but He KNOWS how they all fit. 

And the great thing is He has given me the invitation to come up there with Him so I can know. He wants to show me.

I think of His vantage point up there on His high Rock and it motives me to seek His presence, His perspective. I want to know His secret of how it all fits together. 

I love that He invites me up there with Him. Not only does He offer me safety, security, and protection in His presence on the Rock, He offers His perspective, which I’m learning, is the piece I think is missing. Understanding and wisdom of how all my life’s pieces fit together. Asking and seeking His purpose for each piece. 

As a result of time on the Rock, I can learn to not fret over those pieces that are giving me such grief. I can trust, in time, those pieces are going to come together. Not only come together but be an amazing part of an incredible picture. 

When my heart defaults to an overwhelmed state due to trying to put it all together, I’m heading to the Rock for His presence and His perspective. 

I’m thinking you can’t always choose your pieces, but you can choose your perspective. 

I’m choosing to go with the Designer’s view. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Adventures in Buying in Bulk

It’s that day again.  

The day I have to muster up all I got to get myself to Costco and purchase enough food to feed a small army, or in my case a small family of four for 2 weeks. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Costco, but every once in a while this day coincides with me in a rather foul mood and well, let’s face it--it’s the perfect storm.  I pity the person who meets me at Costco on this day. 

I manage to drag myself in there, grab my jumbo size cart and prepare for my upper body workout of a lifetime, which gets more intense the more I pile into that cart. 

As I near the end of my very precise and rigid turn by turn course through the store, I’m wielding my cart with everything I’ve got.  Of course I start running out of space to put stuff—IN MY JUMBO SIZE CART—when I start to see the staring.

You know the looks. From the old people that are just there to buy vitamins and books. They don’t have a cart. 

Queue the sneers, smiles and then someone actually has the guts to comment, “You sure you can handle that thing?” followed by a chuckle, chuckle.

I keep pushing, encouraged that I can see the check out now and just get out of here.  I stand in the jumbo line with my jumbo cart with a jumbo irritated look on my face, when the check out guy-- of all people-- has to say “wow, how many kids do you HAVE?”  

Now, most the time I go to Costco if get these types of comments, I can deal. 

Today it’s all I can take to not scream at the top of my lungs “We are at Costco, right?! I mean, aren’t we all here for the same reasons? We are all here to buy in BULK? Don’t judge me!” 

But I don’t scream it. I mutter “just 2 kids” and then throw out some reasons  to justify why I’m in their store buying so much food, but really I just stand there feeling like I’m a freak and there is something wrong with me. 

I wheel out to unload my giant food stash into my tiny Prius. As I am attempting this very tedious and calculated task, I have an older couple wheel up next to me and say “we are just curious how you are going to get all this into that little car” -no joke, people, I couldn’t make this up. They then proceed to WATCH ME load it all into my car. 

It was all I could take to not peel out of the parking lot yelling “Up yours, Costco!”

I can’t help but reflect on this and see the spiritual parallels. How quick we are to make assumptions, quick judgements and thoughtless remarks about the lives of others. About their feeble attempts. Their straining efforts. Perhaps they have just mustered up everything they’ve got to just drag themselves through the doors only to be greeted with strange or disapproving looks.  

Aren’t we all in the same circumstance in life? Oh, sure the story looks differently in every unique life, but boil it all down and it’s the same. We all want to love and be loved.  Acceptance. Belonging. Forgiveness. We want to know God and what He wants us to do with our lives. We want to know if  any of this matters. Do my heart felt tries even matter? 

We are trying, sometimes straining with all we’ve got to just keep going, and the play-by-play commentary by the people standing on the sidelines of our lives is just not helpful. Often times, it is hurtful. 

Some of my deepest wounds have been inflicted by people who falsely judged me or made wrong assumptions about my heart and motives. People who disapprovingly watched me push my cart.   

What do you do with that? 

While the answer to this question feels weighty and complicated and hard, I hear Him whisper the simple answer to my heart, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”(Ephesians 4:32) 

The truth of the matter is I’m not accountable for how others treat me. I am accountable for how I treat them. And God’s measuring rod is kindness. Love. Mercy. Forgiveness. 

I’m learning that it is much easier to forgive others when you realize you also have been the person gawking, sneering and making rude comments at the person who is just trying to get through the day with their jumbo size burden. That I've been the one inflicting wounds with careless words or a raised eyebrow.

We have a simple, yet profound power. The power to encourage or discourage. To give or to take. To lighten anothers burden or to make it more difficult for them to bear. 

The power of just a friendly smile, a kind word. An acknowledgement of my feeble attempts to try to be a good mom. How differently that shopping trip would have turned out if the checker guy would have said “Wow, look at all this great food! Your family is going to enjoy some good meals!” 

It makes me realize the power of one interaction to encourage and strengthen another, to help bear their burden in some small kindness, and how love covers a multitude of wrongs. 

It makes me realize how badly I want to help push other people’s carts. To help them load it all up in their tiny cars, all the while yelling “You can DO this!!! We are in this TOGETHER!” 

Yep. And then peel out in my little Prius yelling “Thanks for the lessons, Costco!”