The Puzzle

Bran and I have spent countless hours over the last few weeks dealing with several personal issues in our life and family. Those discussions led to us deciding that our lives are like a puzzle in so many ways. Last night, while I was trying to sleep I put more thought into that concept and came up with the post you are about to read. I hope I can make it enjoyable for you; if not, just know it was good therapy for me to put "words to paper" so to speak.
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The day you are born you are handed the first piece of your "life puzzle." Hopefully that piece shows a loving family gathered around a beautiful infant...or not. It may show a 16 year old girl handing her baby to new parents, or an infant being held by a nurse with no parents at all. No matter what your piece looks like, it's the first piece of the rest of your life.
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That same piece will go somewhere in your parents puzzle...and even your grandparents too. Of course for you, this piece will be an edge piece, since it's the foundation on which the rest of your puzzle...your life...will be formed. It's a little scary to think that this piece and many of the next pieces will be placed into your life puzzle without any of your input at all. These are the pieces that make up your early childhood. Just as with your first piece...we can only hope that those pieces show love, acceptance, and joy. But the truth is...many don't...not all of mine did.
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For the most part, I think you start having more control over your life puzzle as you move into your tweens. This is when, hopefully under the guidance of wise parents, you begin to choose the pieces of your puzzle. And hopefully, by this age you will have a little understanding of the effect those choices will have on the rest of your life.
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Let me jump back for a minute and say that I think there are 3 major ways we deal with a piece we've been handed.
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1. Joyfull acceptance...maybe a new house, or a new job, a new baby, or even your son being accepted to a traveling all star team. We accept these sorts of things, knowing they will change our puzzle in a huge way...yet we still look forward to seeing how it all fits together.
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2. Reluctant acceptance....You take this piece because you have no choice...like cancer, or the death of a loved one, an unplanned baby, or a lost job. These types of pieces usually end up being edge pieces because they will forever change your life... whether you want them to or not.
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3. Outright rejection...These are the pieces that you see no place for in your life puzzle. Someone or something can try to force that piece on you, but you simply don't want to, or can't find a place in your puzzle for it. It may fit perfectly into their puzzle (and that's ok) but not yours (and that's ok too). These pieces usually end up lying around the outside of your puzzle. Someday you may find a place for that piece, but for now it's going to sit there and bug you every time you look at it. On the other hand, you may never find a place for that piece in your life. That's were acceptance has to come in. Not only by you, but by the person who offered you the piece in the first place. For this one, I will share a very personal example...
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When I was around 10 years old I'd been living with my grandparents for about 5 years. My entire family thought it would be best if my brother and I lived with younger parents. So with only a few days prior knowledge, we went to live with and be adopted by our aunt and uncle. Our two cousins became like brothers (and still are to this day), and for a little while things seemed to work out. But the truth was, in my heart I had rejected this puzzle piece from the start.
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At the time, my grandparents and "new parents" puzzle pieces seemed to fit just fine, so I pretended that mine did too. But after a while that piece lying over there to the side began to eat at me...and to tell the truth, that was the beginning of the end. Less than three years later we went back to live with my grandparents & that's were we stayed till we were grown. Little did I know (till years later), that my grandparent's piece of the puzzle never really fit either. At the time they thought they were doing what was best, but they just kept finding that that darn puzzle piece just wouldn't fit into their puzzle anywhere! I will always be gratefull for Connie and Lonny's willingness to take us as their own, and I will forever be endebited to my grandparents who gave us a wonderful secure life where we felt boundlessly loved every day.
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Ok, done with the sad crying stuff...and on to the better things.
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The really crazy thing about our life puzzle is this...not one single puzzle is ever the same. I have been dating or married to Bran for the last 18 years, but our puzzles are as different as night and day. Of course, many of the pieces are the same in his puzzle as mine, but sometimes it's hard to tell. That's because we see each aspect of our lives a little differently. For example, in my mind the puzzle piece that represents our first home shows a fully decorated homey place where we could raise our first son. Bran's piece just shows an empty shell of a house with LOTS of work to do...the same piece...with very different perspective.
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As for the older pieces of our puzzle, over time they start to fade and become a little hard to see. Especially when it comes to the ones that don't bring us joy. Some of our older pieces will never fade because we re-visit them so often. They are happy memories that we never want to forget...so we don't. As for the faded ones, I think they represent things we may want to forget, or just can't deal with for whatever reason. And no matter how much spit and shine you apply to those old pieces, they will never be bright and shiny again. The only thing you can really do is create a new piece with new memories. These new pieces can't replace the old faded ones, but they can change how you see them. And the funny thing is, after you've created them, they may not even remotely be what you expected or want them to look like.... but that's just the way life works.
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The truth is, we really can't create our own puzzle pieces. We can only ask God for what we want to see on those pieces, but ultimately, God's plans are greater than ours & all we can do is wait and see what he hands us next....good, bad or ugly, it will be the next piece in the rest of your life.
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"Did you ever believe, when at birth you were handed a 1000 piece puzzle of blank tiles, that someday those pieces would become your life? When you are muddling away it's hard to see the big picture, but when you step back, your life emerges with all it's twists and turns, lights and darks. What you discover is that your life is just a bunch of blank tiles. God paints the art." -Unknown