A book I read recently by Sarah Morgan had this quote which I absolutely love: “A relationship is like a jigsaw. Made up of tiny pieces. Whether it’s with a partner, with friends, with children…it’s made up of hundreds of tiny pieces. Some perfect, some imperfect. Those characteristics unique to each of us, the genes we inherit, our life experiences, the way we behave. Tiny misshapen little pieces that make us who we are….”
Personally, I really enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles. Actually I do them on my iPad. No lost pieces to contend with. And once you complete it, you don’t have to try to figure what to do with it, because who really wants to take it all apart after you’ve spent all that time working on it?
If you look at the pieces, they’re all slightly different. They may be a similar shape, but there’s only one piece that will fit exactly where it’s supposed to go. And unlike a conventional puzzle, on an iPad you sure can’t force that piece to fit where it’s not supposed to go.
But this piece isn’t about actually putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Unless you stop to consider all the tiny pieces of your life that go into what makes you unique. Like a completed jigsaw made up of thousands and thousands of pieces that are put together to form who we are.
But there’s a difference between the pieces of our lives and a jigsaw puzzle.
Because a jigsaw puzzle has a finite number of pieces that can only go together one way to make one particular picture. Now the puzzle program on my iPad allows me to change the number of pieces I can use, from a mere 16 which is way too easy, to 1400 which I can’t even imagine trying.
So just imagine a jigsaw puzzle with thousands and thousands of pieces which can be rearranged at any time as new pieces are added. All of our experiences, good or bad, become part of that jigsaw puzzle that is us.
Like the jigsaws on my iPad, we can view the pieces as a combination of major events in our lives (the bigger pieces) or the minor events that become parts of the larger pieces of the puzzle that makes up our lives.
How we view our circumstances, how we make our life decisions, is determined by the way those jigsaw pieces are put together. But unlike the puzzles on my iPad we can add pieces, and rearrange those pieces we already have to make room for the new ones.
Our lives are a complicated puzzle, which is why no two of us are alike. Nor will we ever be. No one else has exactly the same circumstances in their life that anyone else does. And everyone’s puzzle pieces are put together in different patterns.
And our puzzles are 3-D rather than the flat puzzles we normally associate with jigsaw puzzles. Can you imagine the work that goes into the puzzle that is our life?
We must also remember we are all a continual work in progress. On a daily basis. And our puzzle pieces continue to change and rearrange themselves until there are finally no more pieces to be added.
I picture my personal Jigsaw puzzle as a collage of bright colors, with lots of flamingos, Yorkies, books, and of course an abundance of family. Being 3-D it also shifts its shape, constantly moving as pieces are added and rearranged.
Think about it. What does YOUR personal jigsaw puzzle look like? What pieces will you add today?