Hope Carried to Others - God With Us in the Pieces

My daughter and her husband showed up late one evening after a 14-hour drive with her luggage, an energetic coon hound, a passel of Christmas packages and a 1,000-piece Christmas puzzle in tow.

I looked past my unwrapped presents and dirty baking dishes, instantly feeling overwhelmed. She noticed fatigue etched on my face, “Come on Mom, it’ll be fun. We need something to engage in together.” She said while emptying the contents of the box onto our kitchen table.

Turns out, she was right. Everyone loved the puzzle. But, by mid-January, I wanted my table back. I was ready to get my house back to normal, so I boxed up the Christmas puzzle before it was complete.

A couple of weeks later, I realized that I was missing the puzzle. This prompted me to order a puzzle board and another 1,000-piece puzzle featuring a bookstore scene. Subconsciously, I was starting to intuit that the puzzle was more than just something to occupy my time when I was bored or restless. It was actually teaching me something about my life. Strangely, I found it offering me hope.

You see, I have never been a puzzler. I honestly didn’t think my brain worked that way. Seeing one thousand pieces dumped onto the puzzle board made me want to take to my bed as any respectable southern woman would. It was too much for me alone. So, I prayed. Yes, I prayed over a puzzle.

My husband and I started by looking for all of the perimeter pieces. Searching for the pieces with a flat edge was doable. Then we sorted those edge pieces by color. The edges started coming together with the exception of four pieces at the top and one piece along the bottom edge. My husband was certain that they were lost. I was beginning to think he might be right.

Next, we started sorting the pieces into categories. I looked for pieces with the same colors. He looked for pieces that looked like the front of books on the book display. We did what we could with what we could find.

There were so many pieces with books on them. What was I thinking? How could I ever find the right spots for them? Still each day, I’d walk by the table with the puzzle and think, I’m going to find five pieces before I leave this room.

Slowly, the puzzle began to come together. Even though I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d probably lost a few pieces along the way, I held out hope that they would be found in the end. Curiosity pushed me to keep looking. Oddly, I started feeling a sense of accomplishment as the image of a bookstore emerged from the scattered pieces.

When we finished the puzzle, every piece was accounted for. It was another confirmation that God can be found in all things. Like Ignatius noticed the difference in his feelings—when he daydreamed about knights and maidens as leaving him feeling empty and feeling an increase in faith and hope after reading about the saints—I noticed that this daily exercise of adding more to the picture made me want to do the same thing in the areas of my life where I felt like I was drowning.

The puzzle offered me hope because I’d added God into the equation. It became a metaphor for what I was experiencing in my own life. Much like the prophet Jeremiah, who lived in a world full of uncertainty, I findmyself in a season that feels out of control. Turning on the news leaves me feeling as if nothing will ever change. Despair creeps in. So, I stopped watching the news. I was tired of people shouting at each other. I don’t like blame, shame, name-calling, and finger pointing.

Instead of improvements we’ve escalated beyond the shouting and blaming. I’m heartbroken by the treatment of immigrants and the refusal to feed those in need. I never dreamed that our systems for helping people on the margins would be dismantled.

It’s a frightening time. It feels impossible to overcome. But by turning off the news, am I doing the same thing that I did with the first puzzle–sweeping it back into a box feeling like it is too much for me to face? I can relate to the people in Israel complaining to God about their situation. But, reading Jeremiah 23:7-8, I am reminded of God’s power:

Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the Lord lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” Then they shall live in their own land.

That promise reminds me that God is still in control. Though I can’t see a way forward, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. I don’t have to engage in shouting, blaming or name-calling. I just need to trust. I just need to do what I can do each day–maybe just five actions that help me contribute in a way that goes against the heartbreaking actions I see in the world.

Going Deeper

Ignatian spirituality directs our hearts towards hope. Read Elements of Hope as a reminder of how our hope is found in God through Ignatian practices.

Sometimes our one action is to hear the hope others have found. Consider the shared hope of others here in Signs of Hope.

Find encouragement in this story of hope emerging from the dark, Psalms of Assurance.

Photo by Jean Heaton

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Jean Heaton

Jean Heaton is a blogger, writer, speaker, teacher, and a workshop and retreat leader. Both her husband and son are in long-term recovery, and she has worked her own Twelve Step program for those affected by the addictions of others. Jean is the author of “Helping Families Recover from Addiction.” She shares her experience, strength, and hope with others at www.jeanheaton.com.