Securing the Border

I love puzzles! Not the word games or the “how do I untie this metal knot” but jigsaw puzzles. Big, beautiful, jigsaw puzzles. My favorites are the 1000-piece ones – I’ve done smaller and larger, but those are my favorite.  

It does have its downfalls. For instance, for me, a jigsaw puzzle is like a good book for someone else… I have a hard time putting it down, even when it’s bedtime. But when done in moderation, I’ve also discovered that it helps clear my brain before I go to bed. It washes all the day’s troubles away. 

For Christmas this past year, my brother sent me a very intimidating puzzle. It was 1000 pieces of a big mosaic tree of life. Each mosaic piece was a unique shade of other colors in the puzzle and not one single piece was all one color. My first thought when I opened the box was YIKES. The pieces seemed smaller than usual, and it was a sea of each and every shade of any color you could imagine. And somehow, they thought it would help to put a picture/poster in the box also. As if looking at what it should look like completed would make it easier. I can testify that it does not! 

I started where I always do, locking the outside border together. Easy enough. But then I had to decide – where do I start? I started laying pieces out in groups by color. Please keep in mind that I’m doing this on my dining room table… a benefit of living alone. I can cope with only using one half of the table for day-to-day necessities and there’s no one to tell me different. But I quickly realized that plan wasn’t going to work, at least not the way I originally envisioned. My table would have needed to be 4 times bigger and my eyesight MUCH better.  

I shifted gears and decided to start with the trunk of the tree. Maybe it would lead me to a better plan of action… or maybe ANY plan of action. It was tough! I must admit that three days into this puzzle, I seriously considered putting it all back in the box. I was frustrated and intimidated! 

But I don’t like losing. And I couldn’t stand the thought of letting this beautiful gift go to waste. Or saying that I couldn’t do it! 

I plugged away. Even if it was only 20 minutes each day or locking two pieces together each time. Each night got a little easier. The more pieces I completed, the easier the next night was.  

As I sit here looking at the completed puzzle, I realize it reflects much of my life. I started out as just a pile of jumbled pieces that I had no idea how to put together. But then came Jesus. And I know lots of people would say I found Jesus, but in all reality, He found me. He opened that box of jumbled pieces of a life that felt like 1000 different pieces and no framework, no border. He built the frame and put a secure border around my life. Then day by day, piece by piece, He built up the core – the heart of someone reaching out to Him - the branched that would hold all the blessings He has instore for me. 

He locked together those random, miscellaneous pieces of my life and put them together into something beautiful, something that makes sense. And He didn't have to separate anything by group or category; He didn’t need a poster to see the finished product... Jesus saw the big picture from the very beginning. He knew what my life would look like when He opened the box. And even if it took days, weeks, months, YEARS for me to see anything that made sense, He always saw the big picture. 

Jesus doesn’t care how much time it takes, He doesn’t get frustrated, He never gives up on me, and He is not intimidated by my mess. He looks at that framework every day and sees the picture that I will be. 

It's easy for us to see all the little different pieces and how we don't fit. If only we could stand back and look at our lives like Jesus does.  We are His beautiful creations, made in His image and it is a glorious blessing when we finally see ourselves starting to reflect the life He has planned for us. 

If we could only see others through His eyes. If we could look at each other as a puzzle in progress, knowing that there is a beautiful picture in the end – how different our world would be. 

I know my life is not complete and there are still plenty of holes in my puzzle, but I know that He holds each and every piece in His hands. And that’s all I need to know. 

Genesis 1:26-27 ESV  

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.