The Big Picture

Have you ever really looked at a puzzle piece?  You may see colors or a small line on the piece, you could gather clues from the shape of the puzzle piece as to where it belongs.  Most start a puzzle by identifying the corners and boarder pieces - some are easy to identify as to where they belong, others, you may know they are part of the boarder - but not sure of exactly where.  But you really cannot see the whole picture in one puzzle piece.  Our lives are the same way.  We are made of many, many puzzle pieces. 

Each life event, each lesson learned, each sin, each joy, all the people we come into contact with, each prayer we lift up -- all are parts of who we are, all are pieces of our puzzle.  Each one is a clue to who we are, but each one cannot define us on it's own.  Unless we allow it.  There are events in our lives which will challenge who we are - events we have no idea of why they are happening or what will become of us because of them.  It is in these moments we are tempted by sin to stop right there and simply allow the event, the puzzle piece, to completely define us and not move past this life event.

Grief and hurt are hard to understand, and it is easy to stay in them.  They have a way of sucking the life from us, calling us to allowing them to consume us.  But that is not what God wants for us.  He wants us to grow with each circumstance in our lives.  Grief, loss and hurt are all part of life - some are harder than others such as a loss of a child, a spouse, or a parent, or perhaps a falling out with a close friend - these are people who are an important part of who we are, they can be a corner piece of our puzzle.  But their leaving should not move us to sin, on the contrary - they should move us closer to the Father.  He is there to help us through our grief - no matter how big or small the loss is in our lives.  The same is true with hurt, disappointment, frustration, and anger - all can take over the life God has given to us - all can come to define us - think of the "angry old man" on the corner of our childhood neighborhood - the one who yelled at all the kids for being on his yard.  Something hurtful in his life has taken over his picture - he allowed one puzzle piece to determine who he was.

It may sound easy from this that you can simple walk out of grief and hurt - I know from experience, it can be hard - it can take time, but if each day we decided that we will not allow this puzzle piece to consume us, that day; we will find after a while - we no longer need to make that choice, for the grief and hurt, though still there, is not lying on the top of our hearts.  And with each day, God has grown closer to us, our faith is made stronger, we will find we are back on our journey towards to Father, perhaps a little bruised and beaten - but on the mend and another piece added to our puzzle.