It all fits!

I spent last week putting together puzzles with my two year old granddaughter, over and over again.  The pieces were odd-shaped and as they lay on the floor, staring at us, they didn’t make any sense at all, a foot here, part of a nose there, a hand stretched out.  I watched as Maggie fit together the chunky wooden shapes.  As an adult, I would have formed the edge first to establish the borders and work my way into the center, but she focused on the picture first, adding the details as she went along, trying each notch, turning the pieces slowly to see if it would click into place.  At times, she had the right location, but there needed to be another piece added before it fit.  “Try another one first,” I would suggest. 

Quite suddenly, I saw myself when in the middle of life’s confusing experiences, looking at God and saying, “I don’t get it.”  And like those puzzle pieces, sometimes parts of life come together, quickly and without effort, and then sometimes, a hole where nothing seems to fit at all, or an experience I’ve tried to jam every which way to find purpose and meaning in it. 

In the end, the picture that is completed

      one piece at a time

      so slowly

  may not become as I expect

or even what I thought it should to look like.

And it might not be until the very end,

           that all those odd ill-fitting pieces

    surprise me all together --

           “oh, so that is why it happened that way.”

Last week it was Mickey Mouse and the Lion King.  This week, things much deeper.  And I realize I NEED to break out these pre-school puzzles from time to time to be re-assured  and to know, just as Maggie shouts out to me, “it all fits, gramma!”  Life does make sense after all, even the hard parts, even the experiences we cannot comprehend. 

We are stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 4.1)

and while I may not understand yet

          the eternal things that are happening all around me,

I can be confident

that there are no missing pieces,

no mistakes,

but only that which is redeemed,

                   revealed,

                         and perfectly placed.

And someday

             I will stand amazed

   at what God has done.