Puzzled

I lay strewn across the floor

Can’t solve this puzzle

Every day another small piece

Can’t be found

I lay strewn across the floor

Pieced up in sorrow

The pieces are lost

These pieces don’t fit

Pieced together incomplete

And empty

The preceding is an excerpt from AFI’s song ‘…But Home is Nowhere’.  I could honestly write for hours about that song and the connection I’ve found with it this year, but since there is homework do tonight, that post can wait for another day.  Today I’ll focus on the puzzle.

If you know me at all, you know my love for jigsaw puzzles.  It began as a child, but college solidified it.  I cannot enumerate the sleepless nights passed in the PVG lobby studying tiny variegated interlocking pieces and assembling them into an utterly improbable complete image.  If you know me well, you know that puzzles of any kind bring out my neurosis.  If I’m working on a logic or math puzzle I talk through it audibly, sketch out pages of notes and tune absolutely everything (and everyone) out until I’ve solved it.  I’ve been called obsessed, and I can’t always balk at the description though I’m not entirely convinced this is abnormal. 

With jigsaw puzzles, I have a distinct (with calculated variations) system for sorting and solving them.  I won’t give away all my secrets, but the most important rule is never seeing the picture before the puzzle is complete.  Granted, I look at the box when I purchase it, but once it is opened and the assembling has begun, the picture must go away.  If I view it accidentally, or through the trickery of a mischievous friend, I’ll likely scrap the puzzle in favor of a new one and come back to the ‘spoiled’ one later. 

The purpose in my describing this neurotic inclination I have brings us back to the lyrics at the beginning of this post.  My life lately has felt like the scattered pieces of one of my beloved jigsaw puzzles.  The pieces are strewn across the floor, no two fitting together and not even a hint of the final image.  Unlike the physical puzzle, I don’t know how many pieces there should be or that the pieces conform to traditional rules.  I just know that in my clumsy fumbling progress seems impossible. 

Today I began to explore the analogy further and was struck with the reality that there can be only so many unknowns.  It’s simple algebra:  if more than one variable exists, the equation cannot be solved.  I keep the boxes of my puzzles hidden, but I know the piece count, overall shape and theme of the completed project.  Without knowing these variables, I would have to see the picture to know where to even begin putting the pieces.  So why do I keep trying to put the pieces of my life back together on my own? 

There is truth in the saying "you can't see the forest for the trees".  None of us know what our completed image will look like.  And yet most of us grasp whatever pieces are directly around us and force them together based on the skewed picture we have of ourselves.  We need the people around us for support and encouragement.  They give perspective that is unattainable on our own.  Ultimately, though, we need to eliminate variables. 

What I consistently fail to recognize is that God has the answers I need.  He knows the precise number of pieces in my puzzle, the perfected final image and the ideal method for assembling it.  When I feel pieces are getting lost, He may be removing them as part of the pruning process that leads to the Christlike shape we all desire.  As long as I try to control the process, I can only ever hope to be “pieced together incomplete and empty”.  I decided recently to choose more than that for myself.  This requires inviting others to become a part of the project, and trusting God to direct the progress.  I’m not good at either of those things but I’m seeking the Lord’s guidance and believing in His healing grace.  That's the goal anyway...prayers appreciated!