A jigsaw puzzle......

A few posts ago, I mentioned jigsaw puzzles. Mum and David are working on the horrendously difficult dog one at the moment. They will not admit defeat. Anyway, Mary mentioned life being a jigsaw puzzle in the comments, or something like that, and my mind started whizzing about. She is right. Ironically, more right than she actually knows, because there I was, talking about bits and pieces, and she saw those bits and pieces as a jigsaw fitting neatly together. I didn't see it at all until she mentioned it. Blind to the bigger picture.

You see, on reflection (without the rocking chair), life is exactly that. A jigsaw puzzle. The pieces will all fit together in the end. The only problem is that we haven't got the picture to work to, and this tends to complicate things a trifle. I have no idea what my jigsaw will look like one day, at the end of my life, but Someone knows exactly what the picture be. I just have to keep trying to get the pieces to fit together.

There are times when I just want to toss all those pieces into the air and forget about it. Times when I could be tempted to take a hammer and try and MAKE them fit. And other times when I am so busy trying to fit one piece in that I don't see the picture emerging in another part of the puzzle. You know what I mean?

And what about trying to fit a piece of someone else's puzzle into mine? It won't fit. The shape and colours will be wrong. We can try to force it in, but it won't work. Trying to be someone else, trying to hold on too tight to something. Not letting go. These are all pieces of someone else's puzzles. I mean, just think, if we tried to keep our kids from growing up, from building their own puzzle, for example, we could also wreck our own. And when we are true to ourselves, the pieces seem to slot together effortlessly. I can also help slot a piece or two into someone else's puzzle. Right time, and right place. I can help, and in turn, can be helped with my own. Pieces can be suggested, tried, pointed out..... All through our lives, as we learn things, discover talents, treasures, emotions, we find more pieces to slot together.

We are so used to the words "it all happens for a reason", and frankly, I sometimes want to swat the person saying that to me. What can I say... I am human. However, all pictures have shades in them. Light and dark. Pale and bright. Without the darker bits, the contrast would be minimal. Think of the Mona Lisa. It is a dark painting. It would be a dark puzzle. But without the darkness, the light parts would be diminished, and the whole thing would be bland and ordinary.

Just imagine what a single rainbow would look like against a dark background......stunning. There would be a great deal more dark than light in that jigsaw. The finished picture would be worth it though. Maybe God is painting rainbows.

So my picture - the puzzle- seems to have quite a lot of darker shades in it. This is the difficult part. I can't see how they fit. And right now, we are working on those shady parts, it seems. It has also got some amazingly bright parts. Actually, I think all 64 Crayola crayons in the box (with built in sharperner - Yes, Bev I wanted one too!) have been used. Blended. Added to. Invented. Lots of them. Loads of contrast. I wonder what the final picture will look like. Someone already knows.

There will be a gallery in Heaven, bigger than you or I could imagine, filled with completed pictures, hung on a single wall. Each and every one will be different. Unique. Precious. All those millions of little pieces blended together, telling an individual story. In modern day terms, like pixels in a camera.

Have you ever seen photo mosaics? One picture made up of millions of other photos. Maybe that is what all our jigsaw pictures will be like when hung in the gallery, positioned perfectly by the Master Artist. Each one, though made of millions of pieces, just a single pixel in eternity, but each one absolutely essential, and infinitely precious and absolutely perfect. There will be no gaps or gaping holes. No missing pieces.

One day we will see it, and we will understand.

But for now, we need to just keep slotting those pieces together.