The Puzzle of Life

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. We start out at birth, a beautiful picture and whole. Then, as time goes on, life cuts us into pieces. Sometimes those pieces all fall apart and look like the puzzle when you first get it out of the box. All jumbled, all mixed up. Don't get me wrong, you can look at the pieces and tell they were once whole, that they once fit together, but you know it will take work and time to bring some semblance of order again. Like the puzzle, we tend to want to work on the outside pieces first. They are the ones that seem most clearly defined, there are fewer of them and they have edges that clearly tell you that they belong on the outside. Those outside pieces give us our shell, the place where the rest of the pieces have to come together. When we get all of the outside pieces together, there is pride, and it gives us hope that the rest of the pieces will eventually fall into order on the inside. You see, sometimes we can even put the outside pieces together ourselves. But, like the outside of the puzzle, we are empty until the inside somehow comes together. I think sometimes for a while, we can live with just the outside pieces and have people think that we all have it together, but eventually we will prove empty and fragile and crumble. You see, that outside of that puzzle is fragile and gets its strength from its inner pieces and will eventually crumble without them.

I think that is where God does the work. We tend to seek Him most when our outside crumbles. When we don't "have it all together" anymore. Our insides are again vulnerable and when the whole world goes out on us and we truly fall apart, we know that He is, indeed, the only one that can put us back together again. Then, when we have allowed Him to make us whole again, we form a beautiful picture that hopefully looks a lot like Jesus. We aren't perfect by far, because you see, like that puzzle, we have many cracks and jagged edges. But, it is those cracks and jagged edges that make us beautiful and human, just as the cracks and edges of a puzzle make it a puzzle. And, you know what else about those cracks? When we are exposed to the Light of Jesus, He begins to shine through them just as artificial light to puzzle cracks.

My question is, "Why Bother?" Why bother pretending we have it all together on the outside, when we know that that shell of a person will eventually crumble without the One and Only Jesus working on our inside to make us whole again?

Father God, my heart feels like the pieces of a puzzle. Help me to crumble before You, so that You can begin to put my pieces back together again. Help me to realize that those cracks of imperfection are what make me beautiful and allow Your Light to shine through, for without You, there is only darkness. Father, help me to refrain from trying to keep it together on the outside, help me to not worry about what others think of me. Help me to be vulnerable to Your Holy Spirit working through and in me. Come make me whole, Father, as only You know how...In Your Sweet Name I pray...