Catalina Island

So in an attempt to do something productive with my 51 days left before I head out I decided to buy a puzzle. The one I bought is a 1000 piecer of Catalina Island. I love things like puzzles because you have to use your brain and find a strategy that works for you to figure it out and put it together. I started the puzzle yesterday and have already decided that it's amazing what you can learn about life from something as silly as a puzzle. Here are some things I've learned so far and how they relate to life:

1) Sometimes when you feel like you've tried everything and there is not a single piece in the puzzle that will fit where you need it to and you're pretty sure that the manufacturers must have left out a piece of your puzzle you look and realize that the piece you were looking for is right in front of you. You just thought that there was no way it would fit. I'm constantly surprised at how the one piece can end and a completely different looking piece is the one you need to continue. The piece seems so unlikely to help and is discarded as an option. Together the two completely different looking pieces come together and make a requisite contribution to your puzzle. This is a lot like the people that surround us. We all have things that we need from the people around us and vice versa, that's just how it works. We don't realize that we have what others need and they have what we need until we are willing to look right in front of us and see (shout out to Avatar). Just because a person seems unlikely to help doesn't mean they should be discarded as an option.

2) The shape, color and orientation of the 1000 individual puzzle pieces splayed on your desk seem random and should not be able to fit together to make an amazing picture but they do, that's why they were put together in the box. This is just like the world in general. We shouldn't be able to work together with all of our obvious differences and yet the picture isn't as pretty if we don't take all of our differences and just let them exist together. When that happens we can make a pretty beautiful community out of this world.

3) When I went to bed last night I was a little frustrated because I had two chunks of puzzle pieces that I knew needed to be together but I couldn't figure out where the missing piece was to put them together. So eventually I went to bed and then woke up this morning, went to work, came home and looked at these two clusters of pieces again. I put my finger on one chunk and scooted it a little to the right and up. It turns out these two pieces that I wanted to have fit together vertically were meant to fit diagonally. I must have spent at least 20 minutes staring at these exact same pieces yesterday and in a matter of 20 seconds saw the answer today. This is what happens when you let a problem sit while you refresh your mind. You become aware of other options and see things you couldn't see before.

4) In this puzzle there are a lot of blue pieces representing the ocean. I collected all of the blue pieces together and began trying to put them together. I made a little headway and then hit a wall. None of the pieces would go together! I sat playing with one piece and thinking about what to do next. As I was playing with the piece I spun it with my finger and realized that when I turned it upside down the piece was still blue. It gave the appearance of being the same but in all reality it became a completely different piece because now it suddenly fit. This can be applied many different ways but the first one I thought of was that sometimes we think we know someone, what they think, feel and believe but we could be completely wrong because you can't really know until you see the person from all angles and really know them. People always look the same but you don't know how they fit into your life until you see them right side up and upside down.

5) As I was going through and organizing the pieces into appropriately colored piles and shapes I dropped one into a giant bin of shoes inconveniently located under my desk. I was holding a handful of pieces, had pieces splayed all over my desk and had a box of them over to the side. I looked at all the pieces and then down at the giant smelly bin of shoes. Then back up at the pieces and back down at the box. I then realized that even though I had 999 pieces that were in perfect condition I would never be satisfied with my puzzle until I went after the one in the giant shoe box of doom. My heart broke at the idea of having almost everything but not quite enough to complete the puzzle and knew that every effort I could make without that one piece would leave me dissatisfied. I liken this to the idea of a shepherd and his sheep that is often used in relation to our Heavenly Father and His children. If a shepherd has 100 sheep and one goes astray will he not leave the ninety and nine to go after the one (Matt 18:12)? I had to leave the 999 to go after the one. I had thought many times of how blessed I am to know that Heavenly Father will always come for me when I wander but I had never thought about the motivation behind it. I now realize that Heavenly Father will never be satisfied until He has every one of His sheep back. His puzzle won't be complete without each of the pieces in place. It's not just a kindness that He provides because He's a good Father in Heaven, He will not be satisfied until the puzzle He created is complete with every single piece needed and will sort through any proverbial smelly shoe bin to get us back.

So basically getting this puzzle has benefited me in many ways; spending my time productively, creating something that's going to be really cool looking and teaching me a few things about life.