puzzles.

i like puzzles.

i should rephrase that and say i sometimes like puzzles.

they have a place in this world. they provide entertainment & are often a great family project over a holiday.

i use them in therapy sometimes. they have lots & lots of metaphors and there is also just something great about having a project to work on while we talk.

this week i have met my match.

i bought this puzzle at wal-mart for two reasons. one, because it was the cheapest. two, because the picture was pretty & fall-like.

it was a win/win.

but as it turns out, it's not win.

i have already spent a total of 4 hours on this puzzle (500 pieces i should add) and i STILL don't have the border completed. my clients choose other aspects of the puzzle to work on and their progress is very similar to my own. there has been nothing good about this puzzle except for the few thoughts that have come to mind in the midst of frustration.

i found out today that i am missing a border piece. it's just not in the box. i don't know if we lost it sometime in the last 2 days, but it's gone and the puzzle will now not be completed so a part of doesn't want to keep working on it. i want that last piece so that i can have the satisfaction of this puzzle, but it just won't happen unless i go to wal-mart buy the same puzzle and search relentlessly for the piece. and let's be real, that would NEVER happen.

my frustration with the missing puzzle piece is because i know the picture will never be complete. i'll never get to see it whole and that just really bothers me.

i want the whole picture; not just the pieces.

sometimes i think that's true about the things in my life. i want to see how all of this fits together, you know, the things in life that just don't always make sense. i want to see the big picture so i can know what i'm working towards. but life is not a puzzle that comes in a box with a beautiful picture on the outside. it's just not like that.

maybe as i learn to be okay with the pieces of the puzzle i'll learn to be more okay with the pieces of life knowing that i only see in part...

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" 1 corinthians 13:11-1