Consider the Jigsaw Puzzle

Mandi stayed with Gramarie for a couple hours on Thursday so I could get out of the house and run some errands. When I got home, they were sitting at the kitchen table working on a jigsaw puzzle.

I hate jigsaw puzzles. I just don't understand the point to them. You sit there with 500 pieces (if you're lucky and it's not more than that!) of weird shapes and colors, and you have to try to make them fit together by staring at the cover to a box. When (if...) you finally get it, everyone smiles and then you take it all apart and put it back in the box for some poor sucker to try again later. And this is supposed to be fun?!?!? Clearly I'm missing something.

But Gramarie was enthralled and, as Mandi said, "It helps pass the time." So I sat down and started trying to fit pieces together. They hadn't finished the frame, so I started with that. How hard can this be, right? Ha! I struggled to find all the straight-edged pieces. Some looked like they had straight edges-- but no, wait, there's an imperceptible curve to it. Others looked like they were definitely pieces for the middle-- but no, wrong again; that tiny tiny piece of straight-ness fits right there in the frame. I just don't understand what is enjoyable about this.

Gramarie wasn't much more patient than I was. Every few minutes she'd hand me a random piece and say, "Oh, I used to be good at puzzles, but I can't do this anymore. Anne, where does this one go?" And when I told her I had no idea, she'd respond rather irritably, "But if you don't know where it goes, how do you expect to do the puzzle?!" My point exactly; this is why I hate puzzles! But everytime I'd suggest calling it quits, she'd say, "Oh, just a couple more minutes. I really do like puzzles."

And then we'd sit there in (relative) silence for a bit, concentrating on trying to get those stupid pieces to fit together. Cardboard is not worth this much frustration. But as time went on, I started to get better at it. I realized how important it is to look at the shading and the shaping; maybe it's not all so random after all? Pieces started to fit-- eventually. I finished the frame, and we started to get chunks of the picture. The scene is an idyllic one: a wood-shingled cottage surrounded by beautiful flowers, green grass, and blossoming trees.

What is this hatred I have of puzzles? I found myself wondering. And then almost immediately I felt my chest constrict as I realized, because this is exactly what my whole life feels like, and I'm really tired of trying to make all the pieces fit.

I've been thinking about the analogy a lot since then. It's almost bizarre how parallel my life really is to a jigsaw puzzle. But there's a lot to learn from the ol' jigsaw as well. Here are a few of the things I think God was teaching me even through the relatively short activity with Gramarie--
- You need all the pieces. Even the oddly shaped and the ugly ones. If you leave one of them out, it'll ruin the whole picture.
- Even the dark pieces become part of the beauty of the whole finished product.
- You can't tell right away how all the pieces fit together. You will make mistakes en route to the finished product. It's not bad; it's just how it is. Some pieces will fit easily and others will be trial-and-error.
- Even the bright, pretty pieces wouldn't look so pretty if it weren't for the dark ones to give them context and purpose.
- When you can't find the right piece, the easiest thing is to assume that piece is missing. But it's probably not; you probably just weren't looking in the right place and weren't patient enough.

But I think what kind of stuck with me the most-- probably because it irritated me the most-- was how much I am like Gramarie was about the random puzzle pieces. I hold up bits and pieces of my life and demand, "God, where does this one go?" I want to know how it fits; I want to know where it fits. It doesn't matter to me if there are other pieces that need to be filled in before that one piece makes any sense-- I want to know now. And when God tells me to be patient, I respond like Gramarie: "If I don't know where this piece goes, how do you expect me to do the puzzle?!"

I still hate jigsaw puzzles. Maybe it's because the jigsaw puzzle of my life is enough frustration for right now. But I'm glad for the reminder that each piece-- no matter how odd or dark or ugly-- is a necessary part of making the final picture.