As a child I remember my parents used to give Nadia (my sister) and myself Jigsaw Puzzles to entertain ourselves…this was in lieu of Barbie and Ken with their ‘Dream House’. Initially, because of our ages, the puzzles were 20 piece puzzles…hey a big challenge for a four year old!!! It would take forever to put the pieces together, but it was really something to behold the end product…usually a picture of some cartoon character…Donald Duck or Mickey and Minnie Mouse or even Kermit the Frog with Miss Piggy. The older we got though the puzzles became a lot more complex. We graduated from 20 piece to 50 piece puzzles and eventually to 100 piece, 500 piece and even 1000 piece puzzles. Needless to say this was a far cry from the 20 piece puzzles we started out with. I mean, now, putting together a puzzle was an extensive affair which took weeks even months….sometimes you started and just lacked the momentum to continue. The individual, isolated pieces made absolutely no sense. They were abstract. Finding the corresponding pieces was literally like looking for a needle in a hay stack. There were times when you would swear that you had found the perfect ‘match’ and then proceed to force the pieces together just to recognise that ’Cho Man!!’, this was not the right fit. Most times we ended up having to do random sections of the puzzle for it was virtually impossible to take the systematic approach. Really and truly, we felt that we were working in the dark…for were it not for the picture on the front of the puzzle box, we would have had no clue of what we were working towards. But you know the most amazing thing….there were times when we actually would complete the puzzle…and it would be the biggest sigh of relief and feeling of satisfaction.
Ok…stay with me now…there is a point to all of this….
I think one of the most profound lessons I took from the year 2006, is that life is one massive 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Each piece represents an experience, a lesson learnt, an opportunity, a challenge, a success, a failure, a moment of joy, a moment of anger, a birth, a death, a hope, a goal, a disappointment, a good decision, a feeling of regret…a million different things…..At the time when we hold each piece of the puzzle, we sometimes have difficulty understanding the relevance of that particular piece. The ‘good’ pieces are usually the ones that fit perfectly and we don’t have much of a hard time finding their rightful place. The ‘bad’ pieces are the ones that we have difficulty putting together, and so we wonder about their relevance and purpose. Sometimes, we feel like not bothering to fight to put together all these pieces because of how challenging and time consuming it seems to be. I mean…this puzzle in many cases takes literally years to come together. But the most amazing thing is that….at the right time, the pieces fall perfectly into place and we are able to see the big picture…the intended outcome that God had for our lives. I learnt that, things don’t happen by accident…that every experience has relevance and is crucial for our lives to take proper shape and form. There are no irrelevant experiences or emotions or circumstances. God uses all of them to accomplish His purpose in our lives if we will allow Him to do so. There are times when experiences seem pointless and we only begin to make sense of them some five or ten years down the road. God taught me this year that I would be foolhardy to discard of any of the pieces of my life-puzzle. Simply, the picture would never be complete, and therefore I would never be complete. He taught me to embrace every experience in my life and to, above all else, learn from each one, because they are all important.
So…..as we all embark on 2007, some of us have incomplete puzzles which we are carrying forward from 2006. Some of us will have new puzzles to put together. Irrespective of what we are starting with, let us be encouraged to treasure each piece. Let us not grow tired of putting together the puzzle…yes we may have to take a short break from time to time….but even then let us not lose sight of the fact that there is a big, BIG, picture that God has in store for us. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”’. Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you….plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. Trust that God knows what He is doing. Every piece of the puzzle will be used by Him to complete the picture…the plan…He has just for you.
Ok…stay with me now…there is a point to all of this….
I think one of the most profound lessons I took from the year 2006, is that life is one massive 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Each piece represents an experience, a lesson learnt, an opportunity, a challenge, a success, a failure, a moment of joy, a moment of anger, a birth, a death, a hope, a goal, a disappointment, a good decision, a feeling of regret…a million different things…..At the time when we hold each piece of the puzzle, we sometimes have difficulty understanding the relevance of that particular piece. The ‘good’ pieces are usually the ones that fit perfectly and we don’t have much of a hard time finding their rightful place. The ‘bad’ pieces are the ones that we have difficulty putting together, and so we wonder about their relevance and purpose. Sometimes, we feel like not bothering to fight to put together all these pieces because of how challenging and time consuming it seems to be. I mean…this puzzle in many cases takes literally years to come together. But the most amazing thing is that….at the right time, the pieces fall perfectly into place and we are able to see the big picture…the intended outcome that God had for our lives. I learnt that, things don’t happen by accident…that every experience has relevance and is crucial for our lives to take proper shape and form. There are no irrelevant experiences or emotions or circumstances. God uses all of them to accomplish His purpose in our lives if we will allow Him to do so. There are times when experiences seem pointless and we only begin to make sense of them some five or ten years down the road. God taught me this year that I would be foolhardy to discard of any of the pieces of my life-puzzle. Simply, the picture would never be complete, and therefore I would never be complete. He taught me to embrace every experience in my life and to, above all else, learn from each one, because they are all important.
So…..as we all embark on 2007, some of us have incomplete puzzles which we are carrying forward from 2006. Some of us will have new puzzles to put together. Irrespective of what we are starting with, let us be encouraged to treasure each piece. Let us not grow tired of putting together the puzzle…yes we may have to take a short break from time to time….but even then let us not lose sight of the fact that there is a big, BIG, picture that God has in store for us. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”’. Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you….plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. Trust that God knows what He is doing. Every piece of the puzzle will be used by Him to complete the picture…the plan…He has just for you.
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