I know we are a bit past the Christmas season and now well into the New Year, but it was all a bit surreal this year as Ruth and I took a trip to Scotland, leaving on Christmas day. So forgive me for being a bit behind in getting season’s greetings and a Happy New Year out. I’m still fighting a bit of jet lag as I write this.
An activity that we used to do for the Christmas season was to set up a puzzle and try to make sure it was done by Hogmanay (Scottish word for New Years). We have abandoned that practice as it got a bit too challenging as the eyes age and then the frustration of doing “used” puzzles. Have you done a 1,500-piece puzzle? Or more pieces than that? I think one year we had a 5,000 piece one. What a challenge!
The way we did it was to set up a card table out of the way and then dump the pieces out, straighten them all so the picture side is up, sort all the edge pieces into a group and get the border done before we started to fill in the open space. I’ll just say I prefer landscapes over marbles. Slowly but surely the colors sorted and eventually you started putting the scene together, and then, horror of horrors, we’d done it again, picked the one puzzle from the charity shop that had one or two final pieces missing, and we’d hunt all over just to make sure we’d not knocked that elusive piece to the floor or had it stuck in the box or who knows where those pieces go — probably where single socks gather.
As we look ahead to the rest of this new year, we look and see the picture on the box and think, well, this year will be great. Sure, but like a puzzle we have to sort the details, find the anchor corners, then put a border together. But as we know, life is not always easy to put together. Some years it is the landscape that goes reasonably easy. Other years are the marbles that all look similar and get us all confused.
But sometimes there is that missing piece that we have to find. The Apostle Paul put it this way: “And He (God) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)
It isn’t about us doing it alone. God can help us find the missing pieces for living. Indeed Christ is that missing piece we need to complete the puzzle of life.
Reader Comments(0)