Jigsaw

Worries, memories, and fears. Musings, Bible verses to study, and thoughts to wrestle out. These things tumble around my mind like playful children. If Time were more generous, She would bestow an abundance of herself on me so I could write and think better. But no, she is not a Lady, far from it, She devours herself like a wild beast. For this reason, I chase these thoughts throughout my days, and they merrily laugh at my inability to keep up with them. A few of these children I have beckoned to slow down and mercifully they have, and with arms outstretched have offered their hand, and so I get to sit a while, like a child myself again, to learn something new.

The Thoughtful Child has bid me sit quite often lately, and like a great many thoughtful children he is often not playing a chasing game. Oh, yes, with the thrill of sweet air in his nostrils, and the golden sunlight dancing amongst the trees, he did at first join in with the chase, but soon got distracted. Running through the tender, stalks of grass, the sun alights on a spider's web. Unconsciously his feet stop running, and as if being drawn like a moth to the flame he sits beside the web marvelling at the beauty. Quite suddenly, a spider zips out from her hiding place, twanging the threads with her delicate legs, the boy giggles at the thought of this little girl spider finger picking at her guitar-like web and wonders if it sounds sweet. His laugh stops as a fly, unbeknonst to the danger, speeds towards the web, the boys gasps. Trapped! As the web shakes violently, the spider strikes to kill, envelops her victim in her silvery thread and hastily carries her next meal back to her hiding place.

Such an every day occurrence, flys get eaten all the time, rabbits get caught on the road all the time, people die all the time. So, why does it feel so wrong? So much sorrow, so much hurt. Does not the Thoughtful Child know already the pain that ends a barefoot walk in the fields and wish that it were not so? Age dulls the child likeness in our hearts, we soon stop those barefoot walks, we've been stung too often literally by the foolishness of others discarding their litter or the stabbings of cruel stingers on our legs. If only we could twirl and skip amongst the fields of green and gold without fear, fear of pain and fear of ridicule for doing what one's heart whispers when we're still enough to hear it. And yet my heart still bids me to do it. Surely for a reason my heart is tugged at this way?

Ah, I could go on a tangent here regarding the fear of man, and of being ridiculed in the same manner David was for dancing before the Lord. To be sure, I'm not about to run to the nearest field, kick my shoes off and do cartwheels! My point today is deeper than that, focusing more on the fact that my heart even calls out to me to live in such wild, free abandon at all. The fear of man, oh what a tremendous topic that is, but that merry little child will have to run ahead of me for now.

Back to our fly caught in a web, such a little, insignificant thing. Does any one actually even like flys? And yet to The Thoughtful Child or adult who still retains that child-likeness, the story has been told once again, it has unfolded before his very eyes, of a beautiful, yet broken world. Our hearts daily get hardened and get used to loss and death. Hardly worth noticing on one hand, good riddance to the fly I'm sure some would say. We're so accustomed to having to put our shoes on and be sensible, so used to troubles in this life, and certainly Jesus warned us we would not escape them. And so at both ends of the scale they often hit us, from the little disappointments to the searing tragedies, that cause us to wonder at God's wisdom. Yet, this little event, a spider's meal, is part of a jigsaw puzzle, albeit probably one of the smallest pieces that fit into the puzzle called The Curse.

It occurred to me recently that life is like one knocked over coffee cup after another (after having knocked yet another full cup of hot coffee all over my green carpet). After all, who can claim to not be touched in some way by hassle, illness, and stress. Most of us have fairly comfortable lives in the West, but we still stub our toe, or are stuck behind an annoying driver, or have to deal with unpleasant people. Who would honestly want to live down here forever in these sorts of conditions! Something in us calls, and tugs at our heartstrings singing with a sweet tune, a song we know deep down inside us. Life was not meant to be this way.

Heartache and despair can come like a sudden blast, a cruel wind that knocks your feet from under you, or as a whispering wind that slowly bores a hole in your very being eating away at you, replacing living flesh with dead, putrid bitterness. Our frown grows deeper, our smiles are forced, our joy fades like a faltering fire, all but snuffed out as the cold, damp of night steals its fervor.

We plod on, forgetting Who's children we are. Despair is worn like a necklace, and quite often it is hidden, oh this is not an embellishment we want to wear for all to see, and in our attempt to look like we've got it altogether we hide it, giving the appearance that we never question and wrestle with our Maker. Oh, how foolish we are. We are all the same.

And so a hidden, heavy, rusty chain, rubs at our neck, burning and itching, link after link of little troubles, inconveniences and hassle being added to our days. Until, finally, true despair brings us to our knees, we collapse under the weight of one more link and finally turn to God for help. What music in His ears it must be. He Lovingly wipes our tears away and soothes our troubled heart. Ah, no He doesn't remove the chain as we supposed He would and that can surprise us till we know Him better. But if we look again we'll see those chains are jewels. For jewels they were when He first let them pass through His fingers to grace our neck. Our eyes see only cruel chains, cold hard metal that hurts and stings, but turn to Him and our vision comes clear.

The analogy has been used many times before of a beautiful tapestry being a tangled mess when it is turned over and its underside viewed. Could not the same be said, and probably has been already of the jigsaw puzzle. Not that of the Curse, for the Bible explains both sides of that puzzle. To the unbeliever they see the underside and God seems cruel, but once eyes are opened we see the whole picture, again literally, we really do see the whole picture, all the way from Eden to our Heavenly Home. God is no longer cruel, for in seeing His Story we see Redemption and how loving and merciful He is.

But, what about the jigsaw of our individual lives? For the most part my hassles include that of a coffee stained carpet, or lack of time and the little frustrations that sprinkle each day. And yet, they are all pieces of the puzzle in my life. Their undersides are blank, plain, ugly and like most jigsaws they are grey, matt, rough to touch and look like every other piece, there is no story told on the underside of a jigsaw, there is no explanation.

We're boxed in, shoved along a conveyor belt, one day rolls into another as we carry our chains, our questions, worries and hurts around. How I long to be the Thoughtful Child again, to regain my childlike heart. To see the hurt, look it in the face as it falls down on my life and remember Who's child I am, Who is building this jigsaw and that though I might feel a dark shadow hover above me as He snaps it into place, to remember to rest in the fact that although from my viewpoint I see something with no explanation, no answer or way out, He is building a story out of me. The necklace of sorrow, despair and pain, those links, like messengers are not sent by a cruel Maker, nay, He chooses each Jewel carefully as an instrument that will lead me to the safe haven of His care.

Childlike Heart. Oh, how I long to re-gain that and never lose it again and be thoughtful instead of harried. Oh, to not just hurry along, rushing physically and mentally from one task to another, to not feel overwhelmed when those delicate links are placed on my neck, but to trust Him. How soon I forget, till a heavy chain is added and I really can't take any more and as what seems like a last resort I finally run to Him. Yes, how foolish I am and how soon I forget what He has told me of his love and care, oh how could I doubt Him? Ah, but He knows my doubts inside out and uses them to bring forth good till a lesson is learned. As George MacDonald said, "Doubt can be a tool in God's hand weilded, in the lives of those who allow it, for the strengthening, not the destruction of faith."

So I long to be a Thoughtful Child, who doesn't forget, who sees and acknowledges the beauty of the Creator, acknowledges the pain and sorrow, the frustration of living in a fallen world as all part of the jigsaw puzzle. And yet, whose childlike heart rests in the knowledge that his Father is good, his Father loves him and his Father is the Wisest of all.