Reflections From Puzzles and Pieces.

God taught me something profound, and yet simple while I was doing a puzzle today.

I admit, I am a complete nerd in many senses of the word. I love puzzles, and actually, God usually speaks to me through interesting means, and today was no different. I was putting together a mosaic, Jack Sparrow puzzle. Classy, I know.

I don't know if y'all have spent much time doing puzzles, but they can be time consuming. And often times you'll put a piece where you think it goes, and maybe it even kind of fits in there and looks like it belongs, but with a closer look you can tell that it actually doesn't fit at all. Sometimes you have to try multiple spaces before you find where your particular piece fits. And sometimes it can be frustrating.

When we were young and my sister and I would do puzzles, she used to just force pieces together, because she hated puzzles and she just liked to try to make it work in her own way. And sometimes I did that too. And sometimes I am sure that a piece goes somewhere, but it simply doesn't fit.

And that is where God met me, and spoke to my heart. He showed me that sometimes I do that with my life. Or the lives of others. Sometimes I take an event, or idea or circumstance and try to make it fit into life where its just not meant to go. It won't fit, no matter how hard I try. Because a different 'piece' goes there.

This is all very timely for me as there has been a lot of transition in my life recently and I keep telling God that I am ready to have some normalcy. I am learning to wait and let Him orchestrate seasons and changes.

It is not God overlooking my life, it is simply Him realizing where each and every situation, circumstance and life event 'fits.' I'm not getting into the whole debate on how much of our lives is predestined by God, and how much choice He gives us, because its not really important in this case. But what I am saying is that God knows.

He knew that I needed to go to community college and then take two years off and do missions work and go to Bible school and work. It didn't make sense in the moment, and yet now I realize the perfect timing of it all.

And sometimes its like I am doing a puzzle. I try to yank the pieces out of His hands and I tell Him "This is where it goes!" Shoving it somewhere that it doesn't belong. And He is quick to remind me, when those times come that 'No, my dear, that isn't where it goes. I will put it where it goes.' And I have to learn to surrender once again. Its a lifelong lesson, I'm quite sure. One that I'll never be done learning.

And sometimes the pieces that fit together don't make sense with the rest of the picture until that point. And that is okay. It doesn't have to make sense. I trust that when the whole 'puzzle of my life' as I sometimes refer to it, is finished, that it will be beautiful. That doesn't mean that I walk around naively thinking that its not going to involve hardship. It will and it does. But knowing that I am held in His arms is beautiful.

And then there are those pieces that don't seem to fit anywhere. I had one of those today, and I realized that the puzzle piece was upside down. I wonder if that doesn't sometimes happen with life as well? Something happens, and we don't see the use of it, or how it comes into play with anything else in our lives. Or we wait and wait for it to make sense, and it doesn't.

Sometimes life goes like that. And its all part of learning to surrender. Learning to let the Master Builder do what He does-- Build. Put things together. Create. And we get to watch what He creates. I'd say that's a pretty huge privilege.

I don't have pat answers for the things in life that don't make sense. And it wouldn't do anything for anyone to try to force some pat answer. But I do know that there is a peace that comes when I stop trying to make everything fit in my time frame and I simply let Him show me where the pieces fit. 

God Does.

Life is funny. Sometimes curve balls are thrown at us, and we aren't expecting them.

This is one of those times for me. It seems like everything decided to come and attack me at once and I'm still trying to figure out what is going on. A week ago I was in Montana, graduating from Bible School with YWAM. Today I am home, and dealing with a serious illness in the family that was never expected. My best friend got engaged a few weeks ago, and I am in the wedding. University starts at the end of August, and there is still a lot of paperwork to fill out. Not to mention the need to process the last nine months, visit people, being chauffeur, caring for sickness and r-e-s-t-i-n-g. Its going to be a whirlwind of a summer.

Enough about that, though. I don't write to recount all of my 'hardships.' I write to say that sometimes life does not go as our perfect, storybook idea goes. Often times. There are bumps and valleys that we never foresaw. There are mountains and rivers that we can't climb and wade through on our own. I think when we're in seasons like that, its often when we come to an end of ourselves and realize that we actually, really can't do this thing called 'life' on our own. We can't rely on our own strength to get us through-- we can't just 'pull up our boot straps' and 'man' or 'woman up.' We cannot do it on our own. This is both a humbling and a scary though. Its humbling because we realize that we are so small, in this great big world. It is scary because that means we have to trust someone else, and what if they let us down?

Yes, that is a scary thought. But when we know the One that holds our very lives in His hands, we know that we are in the safest place possible. That doesn't mean that the storms don't come, but that through the storms, we never, ever walk alone. His strength is sufficient, and more than enough for all that we need and everything that we walk through. We sure can't do it on our own, that is sure, but He can do it. And He actually doesn't need our help, but He does love to use us.

Through this funky season, I have also been feeling like there is a little pebble in my shoe that my foot rubs against every time I take a step. I have been feeling like I don't understand God and that frustrates me. I know, I know. I will never understand God, because if I did, He sure wouldn't be worth my worship. But do I try to understand! I've been walking through this for a bit now, and God keeps reminding me that its a good thing that I don't understand Him. But part of me wants to understand Him so badly. I want everything and everyone to be in a nice, tidy little box that I create, and I want to tie it up with a ribbon and seal it, and label it.

Because that is safe.  

And humans like safe.

Sure, there may be the 'adventure loving' folk, but I think that somewhere, deep down, we really like to feel safe. We like things to be predictable, because unpredictable means that we might not be in control, and if we're not in control, then who KNOWS what might happen? The world just might fall apart. After all, the world needs us to be in control, right? Right?!

I beg to differ. And yet, so often that is how my thinking goes.

No. I am not in control. I find that is hard to admit and hard to live out. But its the truth. I have never been in control. I do not get to decide if I get a next breath or not. I cannot cure the illness in my family. I don't get to control how people respond to me. There is very little that I am actually in control of.

Now that that is settled, there is action that needs to take place. I am not in control. So who is? And how do I become okay with that? Well, yes, its the Sunday School answer--- Jesus is in control. He always has been. God is intimately in control of every detail of our lives and He is not blind or ignorant to what we need. And I become 'okay' with that by realizing His character. I realize that His character is good. I realize that His character is love. He is for us, not against us.

So in those moments, when it seems like the world is spinning out of control, and when life doesn't go as we expect, and when things just don't make a whole lot of sense, we have One to whom none of it was a mystery. We have One that lives outside of space and time and that knows and understands what is going on, even when our feeble minds do not. And that is a comfort to me. Things aren't just 'happenstance.'

I don't understand. 
God does. 

Perhaps admitting that simple, but profound truth is where pride is slashed and humility starts to grow in its place. Perhaps that is where we can stop trying to fix the world and the people in the world, and simply let God be God and let Him use us as He sees fit.

Yes, I am convinced that when we can say, and truly believe that phrase, that is a little bit of us learning to walk in humility.

And that is a beautiful thing.