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This Christmas one of the gifts that we gave to a sister-in-law was a puzzle with Canadian landmarks pictured. You could probably name quite a few of the famous places that were pictured: Banff, Niagara Falls, the Butchart Gardens. It also included some well-known Canadian brands like Tim Hortons and Moosehead beer among many others! She jumped right into making the puzzle and had it nearly complete by the end of Boxing Day. Unfortunately, it never got finished.
Let me be clear – the reason the puzzle did not get finished had nothing to do with COVID! Even if our Christmas did get interrupted by that dreadful visitor, the puzzle was not a one of its victims. I will explain why it didn’t get finished in a minute, but I want to stay with the COVID and puzzle idea for just a minute. That will make for a better illustration.
As our extended period of COVID craziness continues to be extended, it feels as though our life is a puzzle that we need to put back together. We are trying to put things back together piece by piece after everything got mixed up. That is true for the work of the church, and it is true for my personal life. Therefore, I am going to be brave and assume that it is true for your life, too.
Most puzzle makers find and place all the edge pieces first to create the boundaries for the puzzle. That gives perspective and space to fill the remainder of the puzzle. I feel that is what we have been doing at church as we have been meeting together with a smaller crowd. We have been putting the edge pieces back together because that is all we can do. Being back together, even in this reduced, distanced, and masked manner, has allowed us to regain some perspective and give us that space to fill in. We know there is a lot more to fill in.
Just like our gathering for worship gives definition to the remaking of our church puzzle, our spiritual lives give us that base from which God will work in our personal lives. That is where I encourage you to work on getting “your puzzle” back together. Ephesians 3 reminds us that we need to be rooted and grounded in God’s love to be “filled with all of the fullness of God.” This year is about refilling in that puzzle. Ronald Rolheiser writes, “The soul… is the adhesive that holds us together… The soul not only makes us alive, it also makes us a one.” So, take time to tune your soul to hear God in prayer and build up that “edge” so that you can be filled with fullness of God. It will not be because of what we do, but what God does within us.
Now back to the story of the puzzle and why it didn’t get finished. There were three pieces missing, but not because we lost them. We had one piece from another puzzle, one duplicate piece and one piece that was just missing (maybe we lost that one).
But, as we put this puzzle back together, there will be some missing pieces, there will be some pieces that don’t seem to fit any more, and there will be some pieces that are duplicates. Our lives won’t be the same as they were – and neither will our church, but, as we do this “puzzle” we will see many of those landmarks that remind us of who we are and whose we are. Know that it will never really be finished! Being open to the process of being filled in with all the fullness of God is what makes it so fun and so beautiful. Let’s make this puzzle together!
