When A Jigsaw Puzzle Teaches Much about Life…

The jigsaw puzzle sat in the recreation room of an inner-city school for boys.  It was a Colorado mountain scene depicted in blazing colors on the box cover.  This was not what was important.  What was important was how the students gradually took notice, completed the puzzle, and what it taught them.

The students began to solve the puzzle, slowly selecting a piece while chatting with other students looking on.  They searched to find the place where the piece would fit amidst the many empty spaces.  They tried one way, forcing it a bit, then another, until it fit.  At that point, they selected another piece, and so on.  However, when they had trouble locating where a new piece would fit best, they simply walked away frustrated.  Once they learned to be patient and use the box-cover as a guide, the student sleuths realized that they found whole sections more quickly.

As the puzzle came to resemble the scene on the box cover, the students’ excitement heightened with more and more students participating.  After it was finally completed, some weeks later, they beamed with pride.  The young artists celebrated with high-fives, back-pats and big smiles.  They did complete the task, it looked great, and they savored the satisfaction of their accomplishment.

What did this exercise do for these inner-city students?  Well, it taught them some valuable life lessons. Such as, by putting in the effort and working together they had the ability to complete the puzzle.   They also learned that discipline, patience, and teamwork are great assets in getting a task completed.

We are all like pieces in the great puzzle of life.  We fit in somewhere and on some days, it's easy to find our space and some days it isn’t.  But it is there!  

We don't have to knock others over or bully them to find our particular space.  We can do it patiently, by searching, and using outside assistance like the box cover to get the job done.  It's there for us to keep trying.

We believe that God our Creator doesn’t make mistakes. He made us to fit nicely into our place and when we succeed in discovering where that place is, we know we did it honestly and fairly.

Christ preached that everyone lives in the world with other people, like pieces of a gigantic puzzle.  God sent the Holy Spirit to help us discover our place.  And to realize that we are all different, not better than the person next to us, just different. In God’s eyes, we all count equally. God doesn’t make mistakes!

 These are great lessons for all of us to learn and to live by!