puzzles

Tonight, I worked on a puzzle.  Granted, it wasn't even my puzzle.  It was someone else's.  I worked on it alone.  The pieces felt pleasant to my touch.  I began where I always begin....working the edge...learning the parameters.  After I had all of the edge pieces but perhaps three, I began sorting pieces by color.  Let's just say that there is a LOT of black, blue, purple and pink.  Solid pieces.  The place found by shape alone.  I fit a few of those in too.  Patiently trying each one.  Looking for the ones that had unusual legs or nobs.  It was relaxing.  It reminded me so much of my grandpa.  We would spend evenings doing just this same thing.  He taught me to separate.  Then, we would even lay the pieces out in rows with their nobs going one direction and the legs the other.  We would separate the ones that had big chunky legs from those that had skinny legs.  It was a process.  I learned early on though that the process seemed time consuming but allowed much faster progress on the puzzle as a whole.  The organization allowed the mind to see what kind of piece was needed and go to the right area of the sorted pieces to look.  It narrowed the search from hundreds of pieces to a dozen or so.
I find life to be a lot like the puzzle.  Finding the edges, the rules, the important things that hold everything else together...the boundaries...it's a great first step.  And then organizing things into steps...that helps too.  I have so much growing to do.  So much learning.  But, if I take the time to sort out what is important and what steps should come first, then it will help me in the future.  It will help me fit the puzzle together.
Life is like a puzzle in another way too.  I have tried and tried to understand and see the whole picture of why things were so bad with my ex.  Why I never was enough.  Why he had a need to compete.  Why it never seemed to matter if I was hurt and the only time anything finally mattered was when it began to affect him.  When it made his life not look good to others.  Frankly, much like the puzzle pieces without the picture on the box...it's hard to sort out and make sense of.  But, by taking time and putting the pieces in order, maybe one day it will become more clear to me.
I enjoy puzzles.  I don't enjoy having my life be a wreck.  Pieces scattered.  I want to build it into the picture God intends.  I want to stop worrying about how the picture looks to others or whether I'm working fast enough or well enough.  I just want to enjoy the process.  Watching as it comes together.  Reveling in each accomplishment.
Puzzles and life pose a challenge.  Many challenges.  Not losing the pieces nor thinking that some pieces aren't important is paramount.  It doesn't seem to matter until the end.  Then, carelessness matters....a missing piece is horrible.  The whole picture doesn't get finished.  So, even if there are pieces of life that I don't understand or that hurt, I need not to rid myself of them....but rather wait to see how they fit into the picture.
I am full of hope.  Of joy.  I have a lot to give.  And a lot to learn.  One piece at a time....I want to build a beautiful life.  Even incorporating the hard pieces.  The dark pieces.
blessings.