The Puzzle: The Mystery of the Missing Piece

I write this blog risking my reputation of being exciting, adventuresome,  and highly intelligent!

Between my summer ventures abroad & my current venture abroad, I was stateside 9 weeks! In which I traveled to Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois, & Oklahoma, but it placed me in Missouri for nearly 3weeks solid, it was a weird time for me.

While shopping at Wal-Mart, I bought a thousand piece puzzle, a Coca-Cola one of course. I took it to my Kickapoo home and set up shop.  I pulled out all the edge pieces and went to work. Of course I missed a few and had to go thru the pieces a couple of times, but after my edging was NEARLY complete, myself and my BFF had both searched through the remaining pieces about 4 times, which would total up close to an hour and a half of searching. I was more than frustrated. I was angry, I was anxious, it nearly drove me crazy.  I continued to search and search and search. It's just one small piece of 1,000.  It appeared I had all the other 999 pieces, but you can't have a puzzle missing 1 piece, it's just maddening, it's incomplete, it's NOT OKAY! If you'd been in my home, you'd have seen a frenzy of emotion from me & possibly learned some new words! I considered cutting off parts of another piece and forcing it fit in the vacant spot, I considered making a counterfeit piece all together out of cardboard, I considered throwing the whole stupid thing away!!!

Even writing about it gives me anxiety.  It just wasn't going to work without that one piece! I'll stop here and solve the missing piece! Upon Sara's closer examination of my work, I had put a couple of pieces together wrong and once she remedied that, all the pieces went together appropriately, I was never missing a piece of the puzzle.

 Some people ARE missing a piece of the puzzle though.  "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," is the far too familiar life song of many.  Along the way I've heard several celebrities who seemingly have it all, fame, fortune, family, etc. quoted to say, "There's still just something missing!"  I see former classmates & co-workers, & just run into all kinds of people with good jobs, good health, beautiful families, cycle through many of the emotions & near actions I went through with my puzzling situation above. Frustration, anger, wanting to throw the towel in, trying to fabricate a piece to fill the 1,000th slot often times disturbing & destroying the neatly placed 999.  Trying to fill the void with something other than the only piece that will fit, the only piece that will complete the puzzle, and in the end the only piece that really matters.

My Englewood students used to really hate it that every movie, game, outing, & puzzle would turn into a spiritual illustration for me, however, I am grateful.  Having never NOT known about Jesus, that He is the only way, that He is always available and willing to help me, I can't fully appreciate the scrambling emotions & actions of one who doesn't know Him.  I know my missing puzzle piece  is trivial & laughable, but I think I get that He is the Way, the Truth, & the Life a little better today. I also have a greater sense of urgency for those that are missing the only piece of the puzzle that matters.