jigsaw-puzzles

mysteries amid the mundane

Posted on by Grace Day

Although my days are usually quite ordinary and uneventful, mundane even, somehow they still manage to be filled with the intrigue of multiple unsolved mysteries. These mysteries can present themselves at any time without warning, but they are especially likely to reveal themselves when I am going through a closet or a drawer in search of some lost item, which is a mystery in its own right, of course. While I may not find the particular sought after item which prompted my original search, I am likely to uncover other mysteries, which is to say, my search inevitably leads me to more mysteries – mysteries without apparent answers – mysteries that defy any logic while simultaneously daring me to solve them.

So while my inquiring mind wants to know the answers to these multiple mysteries, I am forced to live daily with the majority of these myriad mysteries remaining unsolved. But it is not due to a lack of effort on my part that these mysteries remain mysteries. (the assumption here being that if a mystery is solved, it is no longer a mystery – not after the answer becomes known) No, these mysteries remain despite my best efforts to solve them.

Is this true for you as well, dear readers? Do you live surrounded by myriad mysteries that lack a solution? You are not alone. I think most of us do. But our mysteries may be different – except for the universal and most important one. That is a mystery we all share.

However, here are some of my current and more mundane mysteries. I have discovered I possess at least nine remote control devices. Why is this mysterious? Because the fact is that I have only one TV. That accounts for one remote device. The mystery is – why do I have all these other remotes? I wonder what they are for, what devices they might control BUT, I have no clue. Each remote control is a mystery to me. I don’t know what or where their intended device is, the thing that each remote belongs to, the thing that each remote is made specifically for, whether that is a TV, a stereo or whatever it might be? Where in the world are all of the electronic devices that belong with each one of these remote controls I currently have in my possession. It is a mystery I would like to solve. I would love to reunite each remote with the device to whom it belongs. That would be a happy ending.

I also have various and assorted keys laying around. Other than the keys to my car (which aren’t actual keys anymore) and the key to my door – what do all these other keys unlock? I wish I knew. I hold the keys to many unknown things. Each key contains a mystery all its own. There’s a lock out there somewhere which is the perfect fit for one and only one of my many random keys. Likewise, there are other locks waiting to be reunited with the one key that will open them. Each key represents a mystery just waiting to be solved.

Then there are the boxes of old photos I have recently discovered. I’m talking very old, black and white photos of people that I don’t know because they died long before I was born. Some of the photos have names on them, but most are not labeled. Each unlabeled photograph tells a story I am sure, but that story remains a mystery to me, since I am unsure of who the people in the picture actually are. They could be my great grandparents or even further back than that. It is a mystery that will remain unsolved for all of the photos that have no names and no dates written on their backs.

I also come across random puzzle pieces from time to time. These individual pieces have become separated from their original puzzles, leaving me no idea to which puzzle any particular lost puzzle piece once belonged. Each puzzle piece carries with it a mystery all its own. How did it end up isolated and alone? What or who separated it from its rightful place as an important part of a larger whole? This lone puzzle piece is no doubt one of a thousand pieces, pieces that when all connected together, make up one complete, beautiful picture.

I can’t help thinking that this lone puzzle piece would probably like to find its place, the place where it fits, the place where it belongs. It is designed to be connected to the other pieces of its original puzzle. No other puzzle will have a place for this piece. Only the puzzle for which it was created in the first place will have a space for which this piece was specifically designed, a space that only this puzzle piece can fill. Apart from the puzzle, this piece cannot fulfill its intended purpose. Alone and disconnected, this puzzle piece never realizes its potential.

Ever feel like a lone puzzle piece trying desperately to find a place where you fit in? This is the mystery we all share. Where is our place in this world? in this universe? We all desire connection over isolation, yet finding a space that matches our shape proves elusive at first, then eventually becomes downright impossible to find. We each are searching for a place where we can feel like we belong. In this world our search proves futile, again and again, as we try various groups, organizations, causes, clubs, cults – anything that promises us a place, a purpose and people with whom we can share those things. Yet each time we are disappointed, because we are made for something more than what we attempt to fashion for ourselves.

We are each created in God’s image. We are created for His good purposes. We are created to belong to Him as dearly loved sons and daughters. We find the space that only our own unique God created shape can fill waiting for us when we become a part of “the body of Christ”. This has been our destiny from the beginning – connection, not isolation. The apostle Paul described it this way in Corinthians –

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. . . . But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. . . . Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

Many pieces. One puzzle. One complete picture. The lost puzzle piece finds its purpose, finds its place of belonging only when it gets connected to the puzzle and fills its space – the space that only it can fill. In the connection there is completion. There is also peace and purpose. The mystery is solved. The picture of the puzzle is completely revealed.

I will continue to have many unsolved mysteries this side of heaven. Random remotes, keys without locks, pictures without labels, puzzle pieces without a puzzle – and of course, always, socks without a match. But the important mysteries will eventually be solved in eternity.

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12 & 13)

sincerely, Grace Day

missing pieces

Posted on by Grace Day

Have you ever put a puzzle together only to find that when you have all the pieces assembled, one (or more) is missing? Now granted, for a one-thousand piece puzzle that empty space is very small, but it is an unfilled space nonetheless, a vacant space which renders the puzzle incomplete and unfinished. I invariably find myself vaguely disappointed when this happens. After all the time and effort put into solving the puzzle, the puzzle remains incomplete as long as even one piece is missing. There are those who would say one piece out of a thousand doesn’t matter. But small as the missing puzzle piece might be, it still leaves a hole in the picture the puzzle creates. Every piece matters.

And the pieces are not interchangeable. I can’t take a puzzle piece from a different one-thousand piece puzzle and put it in the empty space. Even if I could find a piece with the correct shape to fit the open space in the puzzle, that piece would not have the right colors or the correct artwork on it necessary to complete the larger picture of that particular puzzle. So my puzzle is doomed to remain incomplete as long as the needed puzzle piece remains lost. Suffice it to say, I do not have a good track record of finding lost things, particularly when it comes to lost puzzle pieces.

Actually, I think I know what it feels like to be a puzzle with a missing piece or pieces. Maybe you do too, dear readers? Longing for completion, yet living life with unfilled spaces – that is the human condition at present. We are all puzzles with missing pieces. We are all works in progress. Ecclesiastes gives me a clue as to why this is so –

“He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

You and I are created in God’s image. We are created to know Him. You and I are created for eternity. That’s why eternity is in our hearts.

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

But our Creator God is too often the missing piece in our puzzle – leaving us wondering about the unsatisfied longing of our souls, a longing which never seems to leave us, as we go about our daily lives. We attribute this longing and its solution to many things – if we just had more money, if we just had a different job, if we just lived somewhere else, if only we were more talented – the list is endless. However, this longing of the human soul is nothing new. In the 1600’s Blaise Pascal wrote in his work entitled Pensees about this aspect of the human condition. A paraphrase or summation of Pascal’s point is this –

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator made known through Jesus Christ.”

When I let God into my life, I finally find the completeness that I long for. I begin to find all the missing pieces of myself that I endlessly seek. And one day, when I am reunited with my Creator, my Savior, my Heavenly Father God – who are all one in the same, this process will be complete. On that day, I will no longer have holes left open because pieces of myself are missing and I can’t find them. My missing pieces will be fully found – every last one of them. No more missing pieces! This is the promise in God’s word –

“Now we (I) see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we (I) shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I will be known for who I truly am, no gaps, no holes, no missing pieces of my story. And you too, dear readers, will be whole and complete. You will be fully known as your true self with no missing pieces. Just as God knows you and me completely and loves us fully, we will know each other fully and be fully known ourselves. No fear in that, just love and acceptance.

I know from experience that I have seldom found any of the missing pieces to any of my jigsaw puzzles over the years. Once lost, they have never been recovered and restored to their proper place in their original puzzle. Fortunately, my Heavenly Father has a much better track record of retrieval and restoration. Based on what King David wrote in this Psalm, I think he would agree with me. King David wrote this about God –

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book.” (Psalm 56:8)

Yes – our Creator has seen and has collected all our tears. I’m confident that He also has possession of all our missing pieces and that He will use these pieces when He lovingly redeems and restores us, making us whole, just as He created us to be all along. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to this time – when we are each and everyone of us made whole. No more missing pieces.

“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

sincerely, Grace Day