I’ve been puzzling these past few weeks. A 1,000 piece Holiday puzzle. This year it was a Thomas Kincaide version of
the movie, A Christmas Story; we didn't even get around to watching that movie
this year and it’s usually one of our traditions. And that got me thinking . . . traditions; they’re
a huge part of my DNA and have been since my childhood. So this year when quite a few of our family
traditions fell by the wayside, I felt a bit like my unfinished puzzle . . . scattered and undone.
Maybe we didn’t get to all of them because of the shorter
Christmas season this year; but if I’m honest with myself, then I’d have to
admit it’s more than likely because my boys are getting older. At 17 and 13, without Santa in the picture,
the Christmas holiday season has been redefined for our household. And yes, that’s sad. Sad because it was so much about Santa and
sad because the magic and wonder associated with Santa tends to grow out of us.
But, (you knew that was coming), amazingly, as I worked to
redefine what this time of year should mean for my family and me, I was stopped
in my tracks. God just said, “Stop.”
So I stopped. I
stopped pushing everyone to keep our traditions. I stopped “working” to redefine our Christmas
which involved me reading aloud from a book about Advent while my family tried
hard to pay attention to make me happy; or finding interesting “family oriented”
activities such as volunteering at a “Christmas Shoe Boxes for Orphans”
processing center. I was just making
everyone miserable . . . but mostly myself.
I did, however, decide to keep one of my favorite annual
traditions; a holiday puzzle. This is
something I usually do with very little help from the rest of my family so I didn't feel I would be dragging them into something they didn't really want to
do. And, when I’m puzzling, I’m not
puzzling mentally . . . having one single thing to focus on is very
relaxing for me (it so rarely happens too).
So I emptied all the puzzle pieces onto the kitchen
table and starting hunting and searching and trying to make sense of how these pieces
would become the picture on the box. As
I analyzed which piece I would need next; going over the shape, color and size,
I would regularly find the piece that absolutely should’ve fit but didn't. It was the right shape, the right color, it
was the perfect size . . . but it had one slight “defect” that made it not fit. I really hadn’t found the perfect piece. Each time it happened, I would be so
astonished, “what?? That isn’t the right
piece?? No way!” Don and the boys would laugh at me; until they started helping and then they would do it too and we would laugh at each other.
As I worked on the puzzle late one night after everyone else
was in bed, I was trying to “make” a piece fit, turning it this way and that in
the same spot where it surely must belong; I stopped. I looked at that puzzle piece and realized it
was meant for another place; it would fit later, in a different scene and
complete a different part of the picture.
It fit, just not where I wanted, in the scene I thought it needed to be
in; it fit somewhere else.
At that
moment, I received my message from God and I was overwhelmed with a great sense
of peace and filled with a deep joy. The
pieces that made up my Christmas picture had all changed shape; they had a
new color and a new scene was being painted by the hand of God Himself. In that moment I knew I had been changed. I’ll never be the same. I’ll never look at Christmas
the same way either; it’s going to be different, a different picture, with
unique and interesting shapes and color, but I trust that they’ll all fit
together perfectly to paint a beautiful scene, a picture of my family in the
presence of God, our designer and great life-puzzle maker.
